Dana 30 gear noise

It's easy. Pop the cover off and wedge a block of wood between the carrier and the housing.

Steve

Peter P> Wait a sec, with the axles out I've no way to stop the pinion gear from

Don't forget the u-joint load. Some u-joints can be stiff and add radically to the rotation force. They have a different load according to wear, fresh grease, just installed and tight, water inside and rusted needles if sealed ones, etc....

Then there is the brake pad to rotor load. There are some inch lb involved there and if the wheel isn't on, then the rotor is unlikely to be square so will drag.

Gotta be some seals and bearings in the hub with load on them too, no?

You also can't take any of these loads from the book. Wear and water are involved.

There is a reason for special tools......

Mike

jeff wrote:

Thanks Mike. I knew there was a reason why I wasn't winning the lottery. I used all my luck up when I replaced the rear yoke on my YJ. I just snugged the replacement up tight until I got out of the woods, and then tightened it to 35 in-lb running torque. I won't do that again but it has lasted about 70,000 miles so far. Live and learn.

LOL! A shop did my rear one and it didn't last 6 months. I have just seen way too many failures over the years to want to mess with them. I think you could be a bit on the tight side, but time tells eh.

Mike

jeff wrote:

Okay, I'm back from Jamboree and need to get the ZJ going so my wife isn't constantly at the mall with my TJ. My first step will be to fab up this "pinion yoke grabber" tool. I've got a three-foot length of 1/4" x 1 1/2" bar stock handy. Will two holes drilled in this be sufficient, or should I be building a pivoting arm with a third hole in it like the one in the picture in the FSM? There are a total of six bolts holding the driveshaft to this yoke ...

/Peter

Won't something like a chain oil filter wrench grab it? How about a plumbers pipe wrench?

I don't have a photo, but the trick is to make the bar so the socket fits past it if you can or so the socket is just captured under it while still being able to turn.

Good luck.

Mike

Peter P>

The thing is cone shaped, no flat spots for any sort of pipe wrench like a regular u-joint yoke. There is a narrow lip at the widest part of the cone (away from the pinion), but it would take a mighty big pipe wrench to grab that, and I don't have such an animal. Plus, I think it would get pretty messed up by a pipe wrench doing 160 - 500 ft-lbs. I doubt that an oil filter wrench would be able to hold it at all.

I've just drilled the two holes in the bar stock so that it can be bolted to the yoke using two of the six bolts, I just hope that that is sufficient. I don't want to break or distort the yoke using only two of the holes to hold it, but trying to fab another arm onto it to grab a third hole seems like excess right now - it's 33 degrees Celsius in the garage and very humid.

/Peter

Thirty years ago I would have used an air impact wrench, but now I have more experience. Please disregard this. ;o)

Earle

Ya that's how the Jeep shop wrecked mine.

Mike

Earle Hort>

Disregard what, exactly? The bit about the air impact wrench? Seeing as I don't have one, that won't be a problem ;-)

Actually, someone mentioned somewhere in this thread that using anything further sown the drivetrain to hold the pinion from turning wouldn't work. Now that I've played around with it a bit more, I can see - or should I say feel - how the gear teeth would cause the pinion to "walk" a bit, thowing things off. I think the only way to do this properly is to have something to hold the yoke itself, which is what I've done. I've reinstalled it using red Loc-Tite on the nut, snugged it up to 160 ft-lbs, and removed my yoke grabber. The axle shafts are removed, and it's taking way less torque than my inch-lbs torque wrench can measure to turn the pinion.

So, just to make sure, what I should be doing now is increasing the torque on the pinion yoke nut incrementally until it takes 30 inch-lbs or so to turn the pinion?

/Peter

sufficient.

message

That is the idea Peter. It can take up to 500 ft lb to set that sucker according to the book I have. I was always told to go at least to 300, but as mentioned, I have never done one.

Mike

Peter P>

Hmm. A conundrum has surfaced. I've incrementally increased the torque on the pinion nut a few times to the maximum of 250 ft-lbs my torque wrench will do. The preload has increased, i can feel more resistance to turning, but I can still turn the pinion nut with my in-lbs torque wrench set to it's minimum of 25 in-lbs without it clicking.

What do I do? Crank on the pinion nut with a breaker bar and hope I don't go to far, or put it all back together and hope the preload is enough as-is?

/Peter

message

Mine got destroyed because the impact gun didn't get it tight enough although I was assured it was set for 350.

Mike

Peter P>

Build yourself a torque wrench extension:

I think I'd rather risk having to buy a new collapsible spacer than go through that sort of trouble.

/Peter

Well, I did both, I tightened the pinion nut a bit beyond 250 using a breaker bar, then put it all back together hoping the preload was enough. It wasn't. Still lots of howling when coasting and now it howls when driving at highway speeds too.

Since I've wasted enough of my time crawling around on the floor of a superheated garage with no hoist and inadequate tools, I'm going to hand this off to a pro, assuming I can find one. Haven't had any luck so far, they keep telling me they don't have torque wrenches that go beyond 250 ft-lbs either.

/Peter