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Rear Pinion Flange Stock - Difficult Removal/Reinstall

Jeff2018

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Hi Everyone,

I'm replacing the stock driveshafts after the lift install on our 2021 JLUR. I went with Tom Wood's.

Everything was pretty straight forward, except the replacement of the stock rear pinion flange with the yoke that came with the new driveshaft. Instead of popping off pretty easily like the flanges on the transfer case, the flange on the rear took constant force on the gear puller to remove it from the pinion. And installing the replacement yoke took even more work. Although I eventually got it torqued to 160 ft-lbs, it was a bit of work.

I'm just curious if it's common to require so much effort to remove and reinstall, or if the pinion shaft splines may have been a little out of spec. The splines didn't look damaged after removing the stock flange. (The flange on the front diff didn't require replacing, so I'm not sure if it's just the difference between the transfer case output shafts and the pinions on the diffs.)

More curious than anything else.

Thanks,

Jeff
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chevymitchell

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Hi Everyone,

I'm replacing the stock driveshafts after the lift install on our 2021 JLUR. I went with Tom Wood's.

Everything was pretty straight forward, except the replacement of the stock rear pinion flange with the yoke that came with the new driveshaft. Instead of popping off pretty easily like the flanges on the transfer case, the flange on the rear took constant force on the gear puller to remove it from the pinion. And installing the replacement yoke took even more work. Although I eventually got it torqued to 160 ft-lbs, it was a bit of work.

I'm just curious if it's common to require so much effort to remove and reinstall, or if the pinion shaft splines may have been a little out of spec. The splines didn't look damaged after removing the stock flange. (The flange on the front diff didn't require replacing, so I'm not sure if it's just the difference between the transfer case output shafts and the pinions on the diffs.)

More curious than anything else.

Thanks,

Jeff
Jeff,

What you experienced is normal.

However... that pinion nut doesn't have a specific torque value. It has a large torque value range.

The purpose of the range is so you can set your pinion bearing pre-load. If you torqued this nut to 160 lb/ft, then it is likely set too tight.

When installing a pinion flange, on an already in service set of gears, you tighten the pinion nut until all of the play in the flange is gone and then you stop. That's all there is to it. The reason being is that the sleeve is already crushed for preload. You're simply just pushing the new flange up against the sleeve.

For new gears, you crush this sleeve until you reach a specific torque to rotate value.

Torqueing that nut to 160 lb/ft likely crushed the crush sleeve further and set the preload much too high. Be prepared to replace both pinion bearings, the pinion seal, and crush sleeve in the near future. You might have gotten lucky and the sleeve held 160 lb/ft in its current position.
 
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Jeff2018

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Jeff
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Hi Shawn,

I get what you're saying about the crush sleeve. That was my concern as I was in the middle of it. The resistance of the yoke to the pinion shaft was so great it was hard to know when the yoke was actually seated. And being that yoke was new, there wasn't a good way to reference the depth of the nut.

I didn't use an impact, so the force was pretty steady.

I hate these wait and see situations; but, nothing to done now that can undo it if I did get into the sleeve at all.

Thanks for your input.

Jeff
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