reusing ring gear bolts

[craveman85]

i was on i 90 in new york the other day and i heard a small clunk. never thought anything of it as ive been driving rangers for 7 years now. later i started to notice a whine . when i got home it was worse and i noticed a hole in my diff cover. apparently one of my bolts from my ring gear had backed itself out and got hit by the ring gear and put a hole in the cover. no oil led to the gears wearing down quite a bit. 3 of the other bolts were partially backed out. i know i properly torqued them and even used a little locktite when i reassembled them. one guy i know who frequently works on pulling trucks said you shouldnt reuse ring gear bolts on anything from the 90's and up. he said its just like head bolts and you should put in a new set every time you remove them. i noticed that the bolts that were backed out seemed to have the threads damaged even though they went in easily and sure as hell did not cross thread. anyone else run into this issue? also i noticed that mine werent grade 8 bolts. should they be? the carrier, my locker, the housing and axles are all still fine just need a new cover and some gears. ill be throwing in a junkyard rear end till i rebuild this one completely with some 4.56's or 4.30's

 

[shovelmike]

S.o.p.

Standard operating procedure is to replace the bolts each time, a minor expense compared to the potential damage that could be done. The new should have a patch of locking compound on them from the factory, whether the grade of bolt is apparent or not I would thing they would be grade 8's.

 

[Hahnsb2]

FWIW I didn't replace them when I did a carrier swap on my old 7.5 and it was fine, no Lok-tite either

 

[Sasquatch_Ryda]

Same here, swapped many carriers and ring gears without replacing the bolts.

I clean the holes and bolts off with brake cleaner and blow it all dry with compressed air. I usually put a dab of red locktight on each bolt before torquing them down. Never had an issue.

 

[Captain Ledd]

Standard operating procedure is to replace the bolts each time, a minor expense compared to the potential damage that could be done. The new should have a patch of locking compound on them from the factory, whether the grade of bolt is apparent or not I would thing they would be grade 8's.

That compound is anti-galling compound, it's not Loctite.

Every time I've gotten gears they've just sent new bolts. So I've used the new ones. The axle on my Black Ranger though I'm using a used R&P, and had every intention of using the old bolts.

They should be grade 10 or maybe 8 (they're kind of a specialty bolt, not sure if they use the common markings). I honestly can't imagine anything less than 8.

 

[craveman85]

the bolts all had the 3 markings on them indicating grade 5. the guy i was talking to said they should be grade 8. maybe somebody replaced it and put in cheap junk. i never thought of it much but i helped a friend change his carrier and gears and he had a few bolts not all the way in when we opened it. looked like someone had stripped part of the bolts and left them there like that

 

[--weezl--]

any chance you didn't torque them right first time around?