Rear end rebuild spider gear question

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My spider gears finally blew out a few days ago on my `00 Tahoe LS. Figured I order replacement and do a rebuild myself. I got the old gears out, the housing cleaned in preparation for my replacements. Well I got my replacement in (Yukon 8.6) and for the life of me I cannot get the spiders in. I can get the side gears in easily enough but the spiders will not "seat" (for lack of a better term) all the way in to rotate in to position.

Just wondering if anyone ran into that problem and if so what did you do?

FYI. This is an open diff. No LSD.

Thanks!

 

[OR VietVet]

I am not a gear rebuilder and if you are just cleaning up and replacing the spider gears, as long as you shim the same way back in, you should be alright. I am assuming you are talking about the gears that the cross pin fits through. Watch this Yukon Gear video:

This one shows the process still in the axle housing:

 

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I am not a gear rebuilder and if you are just cleaning up and replacing the spider gears, as long as you shim the same way back in, you should be alright. I am assuming you are talking about the gears that the cross pin fits through. Watch this Yukon Gear video:

Appreciate it but I watched that video over and over earlier today and still could not get it to work. I just found out why. I was in a bind since this is my only ride and I got it off of Amazon (which usually get most orders right) Anyway I believe I was sent to wrong gear set. I ordered a set that actually had the exact casting number on my diff. If that works I will box up and return the original set I purchased.

Again appreciate the link!

 

[OR VietVet]

I had done this type of repair in my shops that I ran and the techs that did them had no problems but they were used to doing it and of course we had the correct parts too. I bet when you get the right gears you will get it together easily.

 

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I had done this type of repair in my shops that I ran and the techs that did them had no problems but they were used to doing it and of course we had the correct parts too. I bet when you get the right gears you will get it together easily.

New gear set came in and with a little creativity these worked fine!

Thanks.

 

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Update: After replacing my spider gears, carrier and wheel bearings. I notice that what I thought was the infamous "GM Clunk" can no longer be felt or heard. All this time I thought it was the driveshaft or transfer case, come to find out it was just warn rear gears and bearings.

Those components were factory and really should have been inspected and replaced when I first got my hands on this SUV a few years back. I'm quite certain I could have avoided this mess now.