putting in new gears

so im going to put some new gears in my turck. im getting some 410 for it and need some help here. iv built motors, made things drive that couldnt and shoved a v-8 into a toyota pickup but i have never touched a gear set in my life. i really want to try these myself but unsure if i can do these right. iv read up on them and can get all the tools to do it. is there any advice anyone to give me also is there any material that i can read that anyone knows about that explains how to do my axle on my 2000 silverado 1/2 ton with a 5.3????

anyone??????????

Go to YukonGear.com and there is a Howto article on installing gears in a 8.6" diff.

I looked on yukon's site, I couldn't find the article.

I do rears all the time. It's intimidating at first but really not too bad after you have done a few. although, it is much easier to show someone in person all the ins and outs rather than try to explain this over a keyboard but what the hell.


-remove wheels, brakes,
-Remove rear cover
-Reomve small bolt w/ 8mm wrench, push out cross pin
-Push axles in towards carrier, c clips should fall out, remove c clips
-Remove driveshaft
-using your mag base dial indicator note backlash of r&p
With a punch make 1 dimple on left cap and on housing next to cap, do the same but with 2 marks on right side (so that you will easily be able to reinstall caps in same orientation)
-Remove caps
-Using pry bar pop out carrier
-spray out housing with brake cleaner, clean faces where caps bolt on
-Using your ground bar and depth mic or vernier held in place from upper left bolt hole to lower right bolt hole measure pinion depth
-remove yolk, using soft face hammer pop pinion gear out
-remove old pinion races
-remove axle bearings and seals
-take a long bar and a rag soaked in brake cleaner push the rag from the outside where the axle bearings go into the center to clean all the muck out of the axle tubes repeat on other side
spray out inside housing w/ brake cleaner and compressed air
-install new pinion races (do not install new seal yet)
-install a shim approximatly the same thickness as as the one under the original inner pinion bearing on the new pinion, and install new bearing
take the old crush washer and put iit in a vice or on the pointy end of an anvil to strech it back out a little
-install pinion with old crush washer tighten yolk down until there is no more wobble(for and aft) in pinion gear and there is a noticable drag on pinion when turning it. (aprox 10 in lbs)
-Measure pinion depth in same manner as before and add shims to decrease depth or remove shims to increase depth
-once this is set install new crush washer on pinion and the new pinion seal and nut (torque to spec)

-take bolts out of carrier(posi) pop ring gear off
-press off the old carrier bearings, press on the new ones
-clean off where the ring gear rides make sure there are no burrs etc
-slide ring gear onto carrier, start old bolts they will only catch by 3 or 4
-thread using a criss cross pattern turn bolts one turn at a time to draw ring gear onto carrier(guys are gonna cry about this but i've done this every time, on at least 50 rears with never any trouble)
-once the bolts are all tight remove them and install the new bolts coated in red loc tite (torque to spec)
-install carrier into housing (get someone to give you a hand with this part its very difficult to do alone, esp if you've never done it) try to use the orginal thick shims if you can, dont hit them with a hammer, they WILL crack, you can use a screwdriver to try to keep the bering races straight(this is one of those difficult to explain via keyboard parts)
-tighten caps down
-measure backlash, adjust with shims until within spec(moving carrier to the right will increase backlash moving it to the left will take it away)
-double check cap torque

-apply thin amount of gear marking compund and while holding your hand on the ring gear to create drag spin pinion enough times to turn ring gear completely, then repeate in the opposite direction you. look at the mark you made on the power side of the gear which will be bottom of the ring gear while looking at it from the back of the truck, you want to have it centered more or less on the tooth, (the gearset will come with some sort of book with pictures of allowable wipe marks)

as long as everything is good to this point push the axles in slide the c clips back in, pull the axles out and push the cross pin in, apply some blue loctite to the crosspin bolt and tighten it up

install the cover with a new gasket or a thin layer of black RTV and fill with whatever brand of quality gear oil you wish

I like to run the car on the lift for about 10 mins in first gear
-double check the oil level
-drive easy for about 500 miles
-Enjoy

Tools required
-magnetic base dial indicator
-Quality vernier or 2-3" depth mic
-A ground straight bar to measure the pinion depth I have a few of these I got from a machine shop YOu will need one about 9' long for an 8.5 10 bolt(I don't reccomend the expensive pinion depth tools)
sockets, wrenches
-A big ass wrench and long long breaker bar to crush the crush washer with, It can't be done with an impact wrench
-A lift (its a difficult job to begin with, very difficult to do it with any accuracy on your back in a dirt driveway)

I'm sure I left out something, it is 1:15 AM and I'm doing this off the top of my head

I found it... :)

You were pretty spot on though! http://yukongear.com/Downloads/Techn...structions.pdf

right in front of me and I didn't see it

thank you strightaxle!!! that really helps! also thanks for the link for yukon too. i took the cover off tonight and it has all that limited slip sht in it. how does that come out???????