Pulling rear axle bearings

[Geotrash]

What are the more trusted axle shafts other than OE? Prices do look good for most, safe bet all are decent but wanted to ask.

Dana and Dorman are both likely good. Richmond Gear I have no experience with. The Dana is cheaper partly because it doesn't come with the bearings or wheel lugs, but they make great axle parts. I had a Dana 44 with 300K on it in another truck. Never any problems.

 

[swathdiver]

What are the more trusted axle shafts other than OE? Prices do look good for most, safe bet all are decent but wanted to ask.

Dana and Dorman are both likely good. Richmond Gear I have no experience with. The Dana is cheaper partly because it doesn't come with the bearings or wheel lugs, but they make great axle parts. I had a Dana 44 with 300K on it in another truck. Never any problems.

Don't forget Moser!

Ya know if you run faster than 9.99 in the quarter mile you need c-clip eliminators! LOL

 

[dkad260]

I went with Yukon axles and OE bearings. The tool I used to pull the bearings and tone ring was the OTC 6542. This will tighten against the rollers and has enough depth to grab the tone ring using a standard 5/8-18 threaded slide hammer.







Thankyou @swathdiver for the seating depth. Do you by chance have a caliper to measure the OD of the tool that drives the tone ring?


This is the OD I need.







I managed to damage a new one and it looks like I need to contact the rolled edge only of the tone ring. This where I believe the tool contacts the tone ring.



Using a telescoping gauge the best I can to measure the diameter of the tone ring race in the axle tube, I came up with about 2.750-2.752" for a max usable diameter...or about 69.90 MM....70MM looks to be a bit tight.

My install tool I used was 65MM dia and it caved in the outside of the tone ring outer race, even with trying to contact the outer rolled lip.

 

[swathdiver]

Do you by chance have a caliper to measure the OD of the tool that drives the tone ring?


This is the OD I need.

View attachment 404273

I come up with 2.733 on both sides.

 

[j91z28d1]

I gotta say, I've changed a lot of axle bearings in my day. but these gotta be the worst to deal with.

a abs tone ring inside the axle tube? ugh. I'm not looking forward to ever doing this job.


do you have to pull the tone out to get the axle bearing out? they used to sell fixer bearings for gm's, that moved the bearings to a fresh part of the axle. I guess that's not a thing anymore lol.

 

[swathdiver]

I gotta say, I've changed a lot of axle bearings in my day. but these gotta be the worst to deal with.

a abs tone ring inside the axle tube? ugh. I'm not looking forward to ever doing this job.


do you have to pull the tone out to get the axle bearing out? they used to sell fixer bearings for gm's, that moved the bearings to a fresh part of the axle. I guess that's not a thing anymore lol.

It's still a thing and no, the ABS tone ring is deeper inside the tube.

 

[j91z28d1]

It's still a thing and no, the ABS tone ring is deeper inside the tube.

ahh so you can replace bearings without touching the tone ring? that's good.

 

[dkad260]

I come up with 2.733 on both sides.

Thank you!

I took my HF 72MM seal installer down to a local machine shop, and for some beer $$, he turned it down to 2.735". I added a couple thou for tolerance and I didn't want to go smaller than the OE tool.





I did a test run on the old tone ring and it went in with no issues.

The Kent-Moore tool will also square the face of the tone ring with the axle tube when it seats which is a big plus, using this modified tool I had made, you should double check with the depth gauge end of a caliper...which again thanks to @swathdiver is roughly 45MM deep. I have the painter's tape set at 43MM by eyeballing the end of the axle tube, gives me room for final adjustment. I think you have a couple MM of wiggle room but not much less than 45MM.

ahh so you can replace bearings without touching the tone ring? that's good.

You will need a blind hole puller like the one pictured, to grab the rollers of the bearing. There's not enough room between the tone ring and the bearing for one of those flip-out style attachments like this, least I couldn't get it to work. You have about 6MM of gap between the two.



Just don't try to use the smaller 65MM adapter in this seal and bearing driver kit for installing the tone ring, or you will likely cave in the outer race of the tone ring, ask me how I know...

 

[dkad260]

ahh so you can replace bearings without touching the tone ring? that's good.

I was able to almost finish yesterday, just need to add fluid and test drive.

Here's the proximity of the tone ring to the bearing...it's close, maybe 5MM

Pulling the bearing by the rollers worked just fine, that outer race is tough enough.

 

[j91z28d1]

ahh. so it's a physical thing. the 3 jaw puller back a few posts would pull it it without messing up the tone ring?

am I correct and the tone ring is abs? how does it hook up