Part 4: Working on the Rear Diff

Take a small punch and index one bearing cap to the housing so you canreturn the caps to their original position during installation. NOTE: Ifyou are changing the gears, remove the pinion nut with an impact wrenchbefore you remove the differential from the casing. The nut is torquedto 240 lb-ft, so without the differential in place you cannot hold thepinion gear in order to loosen the pinion nut.

Now you can lift out the differential. Unlike the 81/4 rear, with the83/4 you must remove the ring gear in order to remove the thrust blockshaft. If you are changing gears, knock the pinion gear out with arubber mallet.

When you remove the ring gear, remember that the bolts are left-handthread.

In order to remove the spider gears you must first remove the roll pin that holds the thrust block shaft in place. Do this by tappingit out with a small drift pin.

With the roll pin removed, you can now tap the thrust block shaft out ofthe spider gears.

With the center section empty, score the bearing race with a cut-offwheel. Next, break it off with a chisel blow to relieve the tension, andtap the race off. NOTE: Be careful not to cut into the center sectionwith the cut-off wheel when scoring the race.

With the races and the spiders removed, this is all that is left. Cleanit up and start rebuilding.

According to the Powertrax instructions, place the two tapered outersections of the Lock-Right unit into the carrier, then slide in themiddle sections by lining up the machined grooves with the two outersections.

When all the Lock-Right sections are in the differential carrier,install the four sets of double springs through the holes in the middlesections (arrows). Also, the gap between the two middle sections shouldmeasure approximately 5/32 inches. You now have a "closed" open rear.