Broke Teeth - 4.10, L/S, 8.8, 2001

[Viva*the*Ranger]

Oh, when you have the thing stripped down to the casing and carried and pinnion ( no axles ) spray down the axle tube to get ALL metal out of the axle tube, along with the fluid.

This!!! Ha ha. Glad you said it. Easy to forget about, if you're in a hurry, but extremely important!

 

[scotts90ranger]

(not questioning you, just looking for clarification)
Why do I need a rebuild kit for the L/S and why does that look to be the problem? Obviously I don't want to just replace the gears (which Viva*the*Ranger did a great job explaining) if something else caused the problem, because then I'll be right back where I started.

Thank you guys for all the info. It is greatly appreciated, and I will make sure I do a full write-up when I'm done so that anyone in the future may have a guide to go by.

I say you need a rebuild it because of how these limited slips work. There are steel plates and friction plates behind the spider gears (steel plates splined to the shafts, friction plates keyed to the carrier), as these wear down the gear mesh between the spider gears and side gears gets worse causing the gears to wear. While you are in there, take the rebuild and rearrange the discs, you can add a couple more from the old pack, and make it stiffer, from the factory they have a funky order which you will see when you get in there.

If you look at one of the pictures that was posted by 06rangerXLT you will see the fingers of the friction plates. If you look at the picture of your axle, you're missing one of the fingers, that's probably the culprit of what did the damage.

The hardest part about this is getting that dang S spring back in, but it just takes some patience, getting it out is easy, just pry it and twang... . Also grab a little packet of LS additive, it'll help the clutches last a little longer.

Get as much of the metal out as you can, but there's a magnet on the diff cover to gather the rest of the magnetic material, if you want, stick a STRONG magnet to the pumpkin on the inside somewhere where it won't hit the carrier or gears to gather any further metal, that's what I did...

Another tip, it's faster to fill the diff through the ABS sensor hole than the fill hole...

 

[steven083008]

Excellent advice! Knowing what I know now, I would have taken the entire axle assembly out from under the truck so I could work better. Since I thought this was just a brake job, I have ended up having to work under the truck.

I'm making progress though. I have the axles out, things cleaned up enough to work on it, and am about to pull the S-spring. I tug on it a tad and it didn't come out, so I left it be till I grab a beer and get serious.

Here's a picture of my axles. It appears that the left side (first picture) is okay, but the right side needs help. I read somewhere (and will search to find it) that there is an offset bearing of some sort for this very problem. Does it appear that this will work in my case?

Two more cans of Brakleen and I'm on my way.

 

[steven083008]

I got almost everything cleaned up. I have to clean the axles and the axle tubes, but need to get the bearings and seals pulled first. I'll do that when I get home tomorrow, and should be ready to hit the ground running Friday when my parts come in.


Here's another picture of the gears after they were pulled and cleaned up a little.

 

[scotts90ranger]

I noticed you labeled the gears left, right, top and bottom, in reality it doesn't really matter...

There should be some shim washers outside of the spider gears, were they there? Is that surface pitted? On the axle in my explorer apparently someone liked doing burnouts and one side was pitted and really worn out, completely worn through the washer. Has this axle made clicking noises where the truck doesn't move? that's what looks like what happened to the spiders, too much play and the gears just strip.

 

[steven083008]

I labeled their locations only for my own reference. There are washers on the back of the spider gears (bottom sides in the pictures) and until I could get them cleaned up, I wanted to remember where they were in case there were any differences. It appears that they identical, but I haven't completely checked them out yet.

Yes, the axle is pitted.

I have owned the truck since it was new, and although I do drive it a little aggressive (fast corner and take offs) and I do run 33's on it, I certain don't abuse it, and have done very little off-road in it (much less than I would have hoped.)

I wonder if some of my problems date back to the last time I did the brakes and the self-adjuster broke. I didn't replace it (was told I really didn't need to) and wonder if that has led to some problems. I will be replacing it this time.

 

[Viva*the*Ranger]

Good to see some progress! Them spiders look pretty roached, ha ha. Aren't you glad you decided to investigate?!?!

 

[steven083008]

Good to see some progress! Them spiders look pretty roached, ha ha. Aren't you glad you decided to investigate?!?!

My wallet sure isn't!

I can't believe how well the truck was still driving w/ that much damage to the spiders. I had noticed NO slipping or anything. The truck drove just fine.

 

[scotts90ranger]

honestly the gears could probably be reused without much issue... there isn't supposed to be a lot of load at the tips of the teeth, I'd just clean them up a little. I would re-pack the L/S though, and replace that broken plate. I've never seen inside a 28 spline L/S to know if they have the same outer splines on the side gears, if they do you could go to the junk yard and pull the clutch pack from an explorer or something which are easy to find. You need to replace that axle shaft, which you can get from the same side on a '93 or newer Ranger

 

[steven083008]

Hate to hear that about the axle shaft. I was hoping it was still usable. Oh well.

I'll run to the junkyard to see what I can find.

I checked and clean all of the plates last night, and none of them are broken. It must have just been the angle that the picture was taken.

If I grab a few more plates from another rearend, you're saying I shouldn't need anything else? I can reuse my plates and gears? I would just need to add another plate or two to each side in order to make it a tighter assembly?

 

[scotts90ranger]

that's what I did, I think I added one to each side and rearranged them in a more logical order.

One side looks to have 3 plates with fingers, and the other side with two, even in the picture above.

The only sleeve you can get to repair a shaft like that is if it's grooved from the seal, the bearing surface is only surface hardened, so the metal isn't strong enough to hold up, and a sleeve wouldn't work.

 

[steven083008]

Neither junk yard in my area has ANY rear-end components for my Ranger. I wonder what the heck they do have???

I found one place that will sell me an entire rear-end w/ 91k miles on it for $550, but I can have brand new parts for just over that.

Anyone know a good CHEAP aftermarket axle? This job is costing me a fortune all the sudden! Good thing I am doing the labor myself or I'd probably just buy a new truck.

 

[scotts90ranger]

search craigslist, I see ranger rear axles all the time in my area for $100, $200 tops. There's tons of people from here on the east coast (way more than in my area) so someone in the classifieds might have something.

 

[06RangerXLT]

Neither junk yard in my area has ANY rear-end components for my Ranger. I wonder what the heck they do have???

I found one place that will sell me an entire rear-end w/ 91k miles on it for $550, but I can have brand new parts for just over that.

Anyone know a good CHEAP aftermarket axle? This job is costing me a fortune all the sudden! Good thing I am doing the labor myself or I'd probably just buy a new truck.

well if you were closer, i have a 8.8 axle sitting on the side of my house.

 

[steven083008]

well if you were closer, i have a 8.8 axle sitting on the side of my house.

Looks like you are only 13 1/2 hrs away, so I'll see you tomorrow. LOL

I ended up buying new gears from Ford and a new axle from Rockauto. The axle won't be here till at least Tues. This cost me a little more than i hoped, but no used parts were available in my area and at least now I know I should be good for another 100k miles and beyond.

I've got the axle bearings and seals back in.

I'm starting on the gears now, and was setting the discs on the new gears. It appears that my discs were not installed correctly from the dealer, because I know no one has ever been in my diff. On my side gears I had PCPPCPC when everything I can read says that it should have been CPPCPPC.

I think I am going to go w/ the stock setup (CPPCPPC) because I'm not worried about getting better lockup since this is 99.9% daily driver.

Oh yeah, I checked all of my old clutch plates and none of them were broken. I looked at the pictures again and between the shadows and alignment of the clutch plates, it appeared that one tab had broken off, but it really hadn't.