Installing gears myself this weekend.

[Kcsburk]

I am looking for write ups on gear installations. I have a pretty decent write up from a guy on superstallions.com. I also went and bought a Haynes manual today but it did not cover replacing the ring and pinion or disasembly of the rear end. Anyone know of a manual I can refer to or a good write that may help.

Thanks,
Chris

 

[daver01]

first, i wouldn't do it, if i were u. but i'm not, so here's a walkthrough.

8.8 gear install

make sure u have the right tools. u gotta get backlash/shim just right or u will have dreaded whine. good luck.

(you = doomed)

 

[1996MustangKid]

Hi, I want to say good luck and let us know how it goes. I am considering doing this install myself in a few weeks.

 

[road rage]

you got balls i'll say that. I paid the 200 bucks so I wouldnt have the headaches

 

[smokin 04]

I install gears at my work. We have special tools for setting pinion depth and backlash. From My experience I wouldnt attempt this unless You have access to the tools. Ring and pinion setup is very precise, being off by several thousanths of and inch in any of the measurments can cause the gears to be noisey or worse destroy the gears or bearings. Spending a couple hundred bucks having them installed might be the best money spent.

 

[Kcsburk]

I have a dial indicator with magnetic base and a bearing separator and puller just for your information. The job is not that difficult it just requires some precision and a few hand tools that most people do not have. What I am really asking is if anyone knows of a manual or a write up that will assist me in the disassembly and reassembly of the rear end. Thanks for your help.

 

[Kcsburk]

first, i wouldn't do it, if i were u. but i'm not, so here's a walkthrough.

8.8 gear install

make sure u have the right tools. u gotta get backlash/shim just right or u will have dreaded whine. good luck.

(you = doomed)

By the way, thanks for the write up daver01. I will give you guys an update next week if I have time to start the job this weekend.

 

[oogtdude]

good luck

 

[Avenger]

My dad install gears from time to time and he simply put some paint on one of the ring gear's teeth and look at the pinion's footprint to shim it right. Never heard anyone complain about gear noise or vibration

 

[Slider]

http://www.corral.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=452638

 

[oogtdude]

http://www.corral.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=452638

nice shot of the p-red! i never took pics at right time of day to get that color!! DAMN do i miss my performance red

 

[00gtconv]

I have a dial indicator with magnetic base and a bearing separator and puller just for your information. The job is not that difficult it just requires some precision and a few hand tools that most people do not have. What I am really asking is if anyone knows of a manual or a write up that will assist me in the disassembly and reassembly of the rear end. Thanks for your help.

Dont fool yourself. I know guys who do this for a living and they pray after each install that it wont wine.

If you need a manual to do the install, your might re-consider. Its more of a "feel" rather than a process.

 

[Kcsburk]

Can someone explain to me steps 5,and 7. I cannot comprehend how to measure the backlash with the dial indicator as I have never used one before. Also, I need more detail on how to "setup the dial indicator to check the run-out of the ring gear". Can someone define run-out? May be when I have the dail indicator in hand it may make more since how to use it to take these measuremnts.

"We will install the ring gear similarly to the pinion bearing, heat it up with boiling water and then draw it in with 5 of the bolts. This to me was the hardest part just because of the weight and needing to align the bolt holes up properly. To remove the old ring gear, use a press, a dead blow hammer or a brass punch to tap it out--moving around the gear to get it out evenly.

1. Using some 300 grit or so sandpaper, sand down both the back of the ring gear, and the mounting surface on the differential it sits on. This will remove any high spots, which could throw off run-out and cause whining.

2. Heat up the ring gear with the boiling water. Line up the bolt holes and slide the gear as far down as it will go. Install 5 bolts in a star pattern. Tighten them down in a star pattern like you do for installing a tire. Do this evenly until the ring gear is fully seated. Remove the 5 bolts and put loc-tite on the bolts and re-install. Torque ring gear bolts to 70-85 foot pounds in stages. (See figure 20 and 21)

3. Pickup the old shims and bearing races, remember you marked these earlier as to what side they came from. Install the races onto the bearings and put the shims in place. Now slide the differential into place. It should be a little tight, where you would need a rubber mallet to get them in.

4. Install main bearing caps and torque to 70-85 LB/ft of torque.

5. Setup dial indicator to measure backlash. The spec is .008-.015, I recommend shooting for .010-.012 See picture (See figure 22)

6. If you don’t come in correctly and have too much lash, you need to move some shims from the right side over to the left. Whatever you take from the right, you install onto the left. If you have too little lash, the opposite is true, take from left, and add to right. Do this until you get the backlash within spec.

7. Now setup the dial indicator to check the run-out of the ring gear. You want to setup the dial indicator to read the back of the ring gear, the part that sits on the differential. You should have no more than .004” of run-out."

 

[GOLDENPONY]

GEARS

May the force be with you! I'm a pretty good mechanic and I wouldn't do this job. Some jobs just ought to be done by somebody that does it a lot. But that's just me!

 

[Kcsburk]

Most everyone is so quick to say this should be left up to the pro's. Well the pro's you speak of were just like you one day. You have to wanna learn. Never-the-less, thanks to all who contibuted information.

 

[hognutz]

basically a you setup the dial indicator agians the ring gear. you will then be able to measure the backlash or play between the prinion and the ring gear.

pinion depth is the tricky part of the setup. backlash is anyoing but you shim side to side until you get the right backlash. if your pinion depth is wrong you have to pull it out and split the bearing off the pinion and re shim.

the advantage is if the old pinino depth is on the origina pinion. assuming it is set up correctly it is a math problem. check the amount of shims on the old pinion and add or suptract shims to meet the new depth. this should alow you to nail it on the first time if not deffinatly on the second.

basically the pinion has to have the right depth to contact the ring gear correctly and then once that is corect you have to have the right about of "backlash" between you pinion and ring gear.

think about it like this if the ring and pinion were in direct contact the whole time that would cause wear. now if ther is too much play ther wil be slack so to speak and ever time you let on and off the ring and pinion would hammer togerther. you are setting a tolerance there. you do this by shimming the pinion and the carrier closer or farther away from the pinion.

go to richmond gears website they have a good write up as well.

don't listen to people who act like you can't do it. if you have patience you can. that being said I have no pinion depth on a pinion once in my pickup and after I was done I was like WTF didn't I just take this in. Lots of beers died that evening.

 

[mity2]

Good luck. I just read how to and there is no way I'll attempt this on my own.

 

[Slider]

It really is not that hard. It is very time consuming though. If you think about it there are only 2 variables to deal with when setting up the gears: 1) depth of pinion gear 2) left/right setting of differential.

#1 is easily set by measuring the thinkness of the old pinion and compare it to the thickness of the new pinion. If the new pinion is thicker you remove that much from the original pinion shim. If the new pinion is thinner then you add that much to the old pinion. That is it. Very simple.

#2 is the part that takes the most time. It is simply a trial and error process until you get the right amount of backlash. The back lash is very easy to measure with the dial indicator. So all you have to do is use the backlash reading and add or subtract shims form the differential to get it into spec. If you have too mcuh lash, then you add shims to the ring gear side from the other. If you don;'t have enough lash you do the opposite. That is basically it. It takes serveral tries to get it just right, but it is not "hard."

Worse case is that you just cannot get it right, and you have to take it to someone. What does that mean? Well you might have some gear whine for a while, and at worst you have to get new gears. So you might be out atmost $150 from tring to do it yourself vs. going right to them in the first place. Well, IMO that was a $150 that taught you more about gears and rearends then 99% of all the other mustang owner on the planet, and that to me is priceless.

 

[White Stang]

Most everyone is so quick to say this should be left up to the pro's. Well the pro's you speak of were just like you one day. You have to wanna learn. Never-the-less, thanks to all who contibuted information.

Yes but they learned on other cars and not yours

 

[twogts4us]

May the force be with you! I'm a pretty good mechanic and I wouldn't do this job. Some jobs just ought to be done by somebody that does it a lot. But that's just me!

So true!!! The $200 I spent to have mine installed was easily the best money I've spent.