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Hi, I'm Don from 1A Auto. I hope this how-to video helps you out, and next time you need parts for your vehicle, think of 1AAuto.com. Thanks.
In this video, we're going to show you how to replace the rear axle bearing on this 2002 Chevy Suburban. It's the same part and similar process on these Suburbans from 2000 to 2013. The items you'll need are a new axle bearing from 1AAuto.com and this assortment of tools.
Start off by loosening up these lug nut covers. We'll fast forward as Don does this. Once those are all loosened up, you can pull the hub cab free. Now, you want to loosen the lug nuts preliminarily, raise the vehicle and remove them the rest of the way unless you have air powered tools you can do it while it's on the ground. Now, remove these two 12mm bolts. We'll fast forward as Don does that. Now, to loosen up your rotor, either use a C-clamp to squeeze it or a screwdriver through the middle of it and pry between the caliper and the brake disc and that loosens up the caliper so it comes off easier. Now, pry out the brake pads.
Now, remove these two 18mm bolts. Just use a piece of pipe to help break it free. We'll just fast forward as Don removes those two bolts. Now, pull your caliper bracket off. Pull the rotor off.
Now, on the differential cover, there are 10 to 12 bolts and our are pretty rusty so we use a cold chisel to knock the rust off of each side. These should be 13mm bolts if they're in good shape, we actually end up using a half inch socket because the rust has actually reduced their size a little bit. You'll see later we pound a half inch socket on there and are able to get them all off. We'll just fast forward here as Mike removes that bolt the rest of the way. Then, he's just going to repeat the procedure on each of those other bolts, all the way around the differential cover. For the higher ones, it does get a little more difficult and you will need an extension for your socket and ratchet to actually remove those bolts. Make sure you have a drip pan below the differential cover before you remove the last of the bottom bolts. You just want to remove those. Now, using your chisel, just hammer out on the bottom of the differential cover. Then replace the bolt at the top of the differential cover. Then use your chisel and hammer again on the other side and just let the fluid drain out.
After it's drained for a while, just pry out on the bottom and then remove that bolt and then pull the cover down and out. Now, if any debris falls down inside of here, as you can see right there, you just want to vacuum all of it out. Then take a rag, make sure it's somewhat clean and just wipe everything down and just stick this rag back in there. Then using a razor blade just cut off that old gasket along the outside. Then just use a wire brush to get any leftover residue of the gasket.
At this point, you'll probably want to have your vehicle in neutral, and rotate the chuck around, so you can see that 8mm bolt, right there, and remove the 8mm bolt. Then this pin will come down and out. Now, push your axle in, and then, again, you're going to want to have your vehicle in neutral so you can use the drive shaft and rotate the chuck around so you can see into where the C-clamps are. You can see that there's a clip on either side that holds either axle in. What you want to do is just use a stick magnet to pull the clip out on the axle you want to replace. There it is. Then the axle will just pull free.
The only way to pull a bearing is with the proper tool. You can see this one's actually too big because it doesn't even fit in the opening. This one could work but it's small and it'll end up possibly pulling the bearings right out. This one will be just right and basically, you just back this nut off, stick that in there, make sure it catches, and tighten that up. You actually don't even have to pull the seal out; you can do it all with bearing puller. So, just pull it out, tighten this nut up, this helps so stuff just doesn't go flying.
Take your new bearing, angle it right in and you'll want a good size tool. Go right flush on it and drive it straight in. There's a little line right here; it means it's all the way in. You should be able to see that. We just use a little bit of gear oil to somewhat prime the bearings, just make sure you work it all the way around. Then, carefully put the bearing seal back in, tap it straight in.
Then, slide your axle into place. You want to lift it up, careful not to drag it on the seal too much, you don't want to prematurely wear out the seal. Then once it gets in, into the machined area then grab the axle and I'm actually lifting up the inside of the axle where it goes into the carrier bearings on the inside. You just got to find the right spot. Once you do, it goes right in and then just make sure you push it all the way in so you can get the C-clamp on the other side. Now, put the C-clip back in place, you'll have to make sure the axle is pushed in further than it should go and then once you have it in place, you'll want to pull the axle back out and the C-clamp goes into place.
Now, we're using a new differential cover. So, we have a separate gasket, but if you're using your old differential cover, you want to make sure the RTV goes all the way around and that there's no gaps in it and you can see ours does have a gap but because of the other gasket that won't matter. Make sure you circle each bolt hole. Make sure there's no fluid on the outside here. Then take your differential cover and feed it up into place. You just want to replace the top bolt to hold it in. Then we'll just fast forward as he replaces the rest of the bolts. Make sure for this top bolt that you put this harness back into place then let the gasket sit for a minute if you used RTV and then tighten each of those bolts up. Then you just want to torque each of these to 15 foot-pounds in a crossing pattern.
Now, remove this filler plug, using your 3/8 ratchet and ours is in rough condition so we're just going to hammer the ratchet into place and then just remove that plug. Now, replace the differential fluid and you want to just do this until it starts to pour over the side. When it starts to pour over the side, you can just put your pinky in there and make sure that the fluid is right to the top of the filler hole. If it is then you are all set. It's all the way up there. You can replace your cap. Now, jut tighten it up with your ratchet and you're all set.
Slide your new rotor into place and then twist on a lug nut to just hold the rotor in place while you put the caliper bracket back on. Then put your caliper back into place and replace those two 18mm bolts. We'll fast forward as Don tightens those up. You want to torque these to about 85 foot-pounds.
Push your brake pads back into place. Then, put your caliper back down into place and replace those two 12mm bolts. We'll just fast forward as Don does this and tightens them up. You want to tighten these to about 30 foot-pounds.
Put your wheel back into place and then replace your lug nuts and tighten them preliminarily. We'll fast forward as Don does this. Then, torque each of the lug nuts to 100 foot pounds in a crossing pattern. Then replace that hub cap and tighten up each of your lug nut covers.
Before taking the vehicle out on the road, you want to just pump the brake pedal until it firms up and then do a stopping test from five miles per hour and then 10 miles per hour and you're all set.
We hope this video helps you out. Brought to you by www.1AAuto.com, your source for quality replacement parts and the best service on the Internet. Please feel free to call us toll-free, 888-844-3393. We're the company that's here for you on the Internet and in person.
Tools used
I'm gonna start by taking the wheel off. I'm gonna use a 22-millimeter socket, take off all the lug nuts. And take the wheel off. Now we can take these caliper bolts out. I'm gonna use a 12-millimeter socket, loosen those up. And if the caliper slide is spinning, you can use a 17-millimeter wrench to hold it while you take the bolt out.
Now you can grab the caliper. You might want to rock it back and forth a little bit. That'll compress the piston a little, make it easier to slide off. Then you can use a brake caliper hanger, and just hang it from the upper control arm, or you can hang it from the coil spring, just like that. Just make sure there's not any tension on the brake hose itself. Now I'll take the brake pads off. Just slide them out of the way.
Now we're gonna take the bracket off. You need to take these two bolts out. Use an 18-millimeter socket. Loosen these up. And then grab the bracket and just slide it off. Now we're gonna take the rotor off. Just grab it and slide it. If it's stuck on there, you can take a hammer and just hit in these locations. It's stuck on the parking brake a little bit. Try to wiggle it. You can just take a pry bar, try to pry in here a little bit and get this off. I'm just gonna take two screwdrivers. Just try to wiggle this back and forth. There we go. Slides right off.
Now, I took all the brakes off of this side. I did the same on the other side. Now, to access the cover, I'm gonna pull this bar out of the way. I'm gonna use a 13/16ths wrench, or a 21-millimeter wrench. On the backside there's a nut on the other side of this bolt. And take that bolt out. Use a 21-millimeter socket. I'm just gonna use a bungee cord, and just pull this out of the way.
Now, it's always a good idea before you take the cover off to take the fill plug out. Otherwise, if you can't get the fill plug out, then you won't be able to add fluid to it after you're done. So, just use a 3/8 extension and a ratchet. There we go. Now, some of these cover bolts are pretty rusted, so I'm just gonna take a wire brush. Just try to clean up some of the rust. All right, now I'm gonna take the cover off. I'm gonna use a 13-millimeter socket, take all these bolts off. I'm gonna leave the top one in a little bit, just leave it loose, and then I'll pry the cover off.
This one has the brake bracket right here, brake hose bracket, or brake lines. Move it out of the way. Just be careful. If this looks really rusty, be more careful with it. Now I'll just loosen this one up. Let's leave it like that. Make sure you have a drain bucket underneath before you start taking those bolts out. And then just get a screwdriver or a pry bar. Just get underneath the cover, and just slowly pull it back. Let the fluid drain.
And once that's loose, I'm gonna take the bolt off, and just slide the cover out. There you go. You need to put the transmission in neutral and rotate the driveshaft, so that this bolt ends up right here, because we're gonna take that pin off. Now I'm gonna take this bolt out, which actually has a pin that goes through there, and I'm gonna use an 8-millimeter socket. You can try to use a wrench. Sometimes it's not so easy. And just take that off, loosen that up, and slide this out.
You're gonna have to go around the carrier and then try to push on the pin and slide this out. Now I'm gonna carefully rotate the drive shaft again. Just make sure the gears aren't turning, because you don't want them to fall out. That looks okay. Now I need to hit the axle. Use a rubber mallet or a dead blow. Just tap it in. What you're looking for is there's a clip in there, and you need to be able to access that clip. Right now I can't get to it, so we're gonna tap this in more.
All right. So, now the C clip is out far enough that I should be able to grab it with a magnet. Just use a magnet and grab it. You might have to rotate it a little bit. Slide it out like that. Now I can use a pry bar and just pry the axle out. Be careful. Just pry right where the parking brake mechanism is, right there. Once you pry out that far, then it should be easier to pull it out. There is a reluctor wheel in there that it presses on to, and it just drops down once you pull that out. And slide the axle out.
Now, you can use different types of seal pullers, or sometimes even just a pry bar works good. Just get underneath there, and just pry it out. Now I'm gonna take a bearing puller, and you just slide this in position. That lined up. This washer on and then tighten this nut down. Now I'm gonna use a slide hammer, with that all tightened up, and take the bearing out. There we go.
Now we'll take the bearing and a bearing installer, and just slide it in position. Take a hammer, tap it in. Now, you kind of wanna pay attention to where, how deep it was in there before you took it out. Take a look. A little bit further. It will eventually bottom out, and if you get to that point, that's okay. That looks good. Now I'm gonna take the seal. Just make sure you check the edges around here. You can wipe them with a towel or something, or a rag. And they look good. There's nothing wrong there. Just take the seal, put that on, and the best way to install this type of seal, use a block of wood. If you had a four by four, go this way, it works good. Just lie it flat like that. Use a hammer and give it a tap. That's good. Or you can use a seal installer as well.
Now, before we slide the axle back in, just take a little bit of your axle lube, your gear oil. You can check your owner's manual for the correct type, and just lubricate that bearing, and just spin it around a little bit. And slide the axle in. And then, you're gonna have to tip it up a little bit, just to get it... And you don't wanna twist it too much, because then you're gonna mess up the spider gears. And I'm gonna have to give it a couple more taps so that I can get the C clip in. That looks good.
And just take the clip, slide it in position. It's all the way in. Then just slide the axle out. Then you can do the same procedure on the other side. And after you've done that, then let's rotate the axle, rotate the drive shaft, I mean. And get the pin lined up. And you may have to move the bearings a little bit, I mean the spider gears. Make sure the hole's lined up with where the bolt goes. There we go. You can give it a little tap with something soft, and slide the pin back in, the pin bolt. And tighten that up.
Now I'm gonna torque this bolt to 27 foot-pounds. This vehicle has a 8.6 rear end. If you have a 9.5 rear end, you're gonna torque that to 37 foot-pounds. At this point, you can put the vehicle back in park. At this point, I can use a scraper, or even a razorblade, just be careful if you're using a razor blade, and just scrape off any excess gasket material. Now I'm gonna use a little brake parts cleaner and just wipe this down. Try not to spray directly into the gear.
Now I can take the gasket, and just line that in position. And take the cover, try to go over the gear. There you go. Just twist it a little bit. You don't have to take the sway bar links out, but you could, if you were struggling with that. And just line this all up, and get the bolts started. And I can move this brake hose bracket down, and brake lines, and put that bolt through. I'm just gonna snug these down before I torque them down. Now I'm gonna torque this to 30 foot-pounds, and make sure you torque it in a cross pattern. So we'll torque this one and then just go criss-cross. All right. That's all of them.
If you're not gonna use this fill plug to fill up the rear differential, you can use a 10-millimeter hex socket, and tighten that up. Just make sure it's snug. Now just hook this up, and torque this to 77 foot-pounds. With the fill plug out, I'm gonna add the limited-slip additive first. It's always a good idea to add it and do that first before you add the gear oil. And then add the proper gear oil. You can check your owner's manual. You can use a hose to get the fluid into the rear diff. All right.
Now, as you're filling this up, if you notice that it starts coming out the fill plug, then that's up to the ideal level. Certain vehicles, it doesn't have to go all the way to the fill plug. You wanna check your owner's manual and put the appropriate amount of fluid in. Now put the fill plug in, and snug this up. Not too tight. Once it starts getting a little snugger, just a little bit more. That's good. Take a little brake parts cleaner and clean it off.
Now take the caliper bracket, line it back up. Brake caliper bolts. Get those started. Now I'm gonna torque these bolts to 122 foot-pounds. Now I'm gonna put the brake pads on. Now, the warning indicators are gonna go to the top. So, on the inboard pad, goes at the top, and same with the outboard pad. Just slide them in position. And that's good. Now I'm gonna take the brake caliper off the hook, and just slide it over the brake pads. Put the caliper bolt it. Take a 17-millimeter wrench, and torque this bolt to 30 foot-pounds. Do the same on the top.
All right, put the wheel on, and put the lug nuts on. Now we're gonna torque these lug nuts to 140 foot-pounds, in a cross pattern, so that it tightens the wheel down evenly. And just go around and double check.
Tools used
Okay, friends. One of the first things we have to do is safely raise and support the vehicle. Once you have your wheels off the ground in the rear, we're gonna go ahead and remove all six of these Lug Nuts. Remove your wheel.
One of the next things that we need to do is take a nice small pry bar like this. We're gonna come in between the Caliper and the Pad, and we're just gonna apply a little bit of leverage. What we wanna do is just push in that Caliper Piston just a teeny bit to take the pressure off of the brakes. The next thing we need to do is remove our two 18-millimeter mounting bolts for our caliper. Just take a wrench, you can use a socket with a ratchet if you'd like. There's one bolt.
I'm just gonna start that in just a couple of threads to hold the caliper for me while I remove the second. There it is. Let's get that other one out of there. Next, we're gonna take the caliper and we'll just set it up here where it's gonna be nice and safe. Just make sure you put it somewhere that it's not gonna potentially fall down and hopefully not hurt you in any way. Now it's gonna be time to remove your rotor. You might need to give it a couple of light bonks.
The next thing we're gonna wanna do is make sure that the vehicle is in neutral. You wanna be able to spin your drive shaft. With that said, come right over here to your fill plug on your rear differential. You're gonna remove that next using a 3/8ths ratchet. All right, let's grab a collection bucket for the next step.
The next thing we're gonna do is come right here for your E-brake cable. Just get that right out of its securing bracket. Okay. After that, go ahead and grab something and just kinda come along the side of your differential, approximately where the pan is. You just wanna try to get out as much of that crud as possible so nothing will fall down inside of the differential once we get this cover off. Now, the next thing we're gonna wanna do is make sure that we keep in mind that this is where the bracket's gonna go, right in the center, because it needs to go back there once we take this all apart.
Use your 13-millimeter socket and a nice light hammer. You can use a rubber mallet if you're worried about it. Just go over these bolts and tap it on there. All we're trying to do right now is just kinda break free all the rust, rot, or any type of obstacle that's gonna make it an issue to get these bolts out. We also wanna make sure you have a nice collection bucket because after you remove these bolts, there's gonna be fluid behind here that needs to go somewhere and it needs to be recycled.
Now let's just start that bolt back in a little bit here. Now we're gonna continue by removing all the rest of the bolts. Remove the pan. If for some reason your pan is stuck on the rear differential, you could use something as simple as a nice rubber mallet, give it a couple of light bonks, or even try to get in between the pan and the differential itself with something as simple as a screwdriver or a pry bar.
Now, if you were to look at the inside of this pan, you're gonna see a whole bunch of debris, especially in this area right here where the magnet is. This is all small metal shavings, and it's no good for the inside of your differential. Speaking of no good, if you were to look all along the side where the gasket is supposed to ride between the pan and the differential, you're gonna see a lot of debris. You need to make sure you clean all that up. So, go ahead and clean it up, clean up all this area. Make sure you get off all the debris. If you have a nice parts washer, that'll work great. Or of course, you can use some parts cleaner, just make sure you're using safety protection and do it over a recycling unit.
The next thing we need to do is cover this whole area with something, because when we peel this up, we don't want very much dirt or debris getting inside this area, obviously. Just do whatever you can to try to protect it. That looks pretty decent. It's gonna keep the majority of everything out. The next thing we need to do is clean up the surface on the rear differential, where the gasket/pan is gonna be. Now, to clean this up, there's a couple of things that you could use. You could use a nice scraper that looks like this, you could also use a razor blade if you were so inclined, because maybe you don't have a scraper. Something that I do recommend that you do not use would be something that looks like this. The reason for that is because of course it's course, it's gonna, of course, tear into the metal of the rear differential and all that metal dust that you're gonna be shooting all around inside the air can accumulate on anything that's moist, which, well, everything is moist in there. And that can, of course, potentially cause damage with your bearings and other stuff inside the differential.
So now, let's go ahead and get this out of here. What you're gonna notice is that the areas that had a lot of rust and everything are still gonna be discolored, and that's okay. We're not necessarily worried about coloration. We're more or less worried about making sure everything is nice and smooth so we have a great mounting surface or mating surface for when the gasket and the pan go on the differential. Don't worry so much about the dripping, we'll deal with that later.
But to continue, the next thing we're gonna do is grab onto that rear driveshaft and we're gonna spin it, and we're gonna pay attention right inside of here because we're looking for this pin and we're also looking for this bolt right there. Now, when we go to take out this bolt, it's gonna be a long bolt and it's gonna come right straight through this pin, and then in through a little bit further. Once you take out the bolt, there's a potential and a probability that this bolt or this pin right here is just gonna wanna slide out. That's hardened steel, if it slips and hits the ground, especially if you're on pavement, you could chip it or damage it in some way. So take out the bolt carefully, grab your pin and slide it out. Now, to remove this bolt, you can use a socket with a ratchet if you want to, but you're probably not gonna have very much space. I prefer to go with an 8-millimeter wrench, and if you have a six-point, it's gonna do good. Go ahead and put it right on there. Use a nice rubber mallet. We're just gonna break that free, work it back and forth because there should be a teeny bit of locktite on there, or thread locker. Now we're just gonna remove that bolt. So, that bolt's nice and loose, it can move around. Like I said, it's gonna come straight through this pin. Make sure you hold up that pin, remove your bolt, and then slowly let this pin-down and set it aside.
Now, if you spin that drive shaft around, you're gonna see an area that looks like this. You don't wanna mess with any of this stuff, we're not gonna mess with that. I just go ahead and use my finger inside this hole. Be careful, because if you don't, what you might notice is that the gears on the inside are gonna kinda get spun. So I'm just kinda keeping my finger in there. Be careful for any pinch points, nobody should get hurt doing this. I'm gonna try to spin this all the way around so this hole right here is facing down. The reason why I want that is because inside here, the axle is gonna come through the whole differential tube, and it's gonna come out into here, and you can see where these little gears are right there, there's gonna be a little clip. So, what's gonna happen next is I'm gonna go over to the outer portion of the differential on the axle that I'm working on, I'm gonna press it in. The little U-clip, it's gonna look something like this, is gonna go fall out and then fall inside here, hopefully, or even inside my collection bucket.
Give it a nice little wiggle around. We wanna see if we can get that clip to fall out of there. If you can't, we're gonna try using a pick or a magnet. I have a small pocket screwdriver that has a tiny magnet on it. You don't necessarily need the screwdriver portion, but you do need the small magnet. I'm gonna come right in here along where that gear is and I'm gonna try to find right where that clip's gonna be, the one that I told you about, it looks like a little U. I'm gonna just stick it on there. And now I'm gonna go back over to the outer portion of the axle and just try to move it around and see if we can get this clip to break free/come out. There it is, friends.
Now, for the next step, we wanna have it back at a working height so we can easily get to our axle. Keep in mind that axles aren't super light, so, it will be heavy. Also something that you need to keep in mind is, as we draw this away, there's gonna be fluid that's inside this differential tube and some of it's gonna wanna come out. So, also, make sure you have a collection bucket underneath this axle portion here. I like to just wipe it as I pull it out. Awesome.
Now, just before we continue, I just wanna make sure you understand that, yeah, the E-brake shoe is missing and the backing plate, it looks like it's pretty much missing, it's just rotted away. That's not necessarily part of this video and/or this instruction, just don't pay any attention to that.
The next thing that I always like to do is just take a rag, I'm gonna shove her right inside this hole right there. And then I'm gonna take something like this, and I'm just gonna clean up as much of this rust/rot that might be around this area. Okay, so this looks nice. Let's go ahead and get our rag out of there. We'll make sure that we dispose of that properly in a minute. The next thing we're gonna have to do is remove this seal. You're gonna notice that the seal actually has a little bit of a ridge. It's not really something that you can probably grab onto your fingernail, especially if it's rotted like this one is, but if you were to take something that looks like this, or even a small punch or chisel, you can usually grab that edge and bonk it away and it'll come away from the differential. Other ways that you can do it, if this way wasn't working for you. You can use something like this, a nice long pry bar, come right in between like this, and then you would just keep prying and it'll eventually lift this up and then draw it away. Just be careful because, once again, like I said before, fluid is behind this and it will wanna come out, make sure you have a collection bucket.
So let's try this with the first way here. We're gonna use this little scraper. Just try to kinda pry out on that edge. And even if this way doesn't necessarily work, it will actually help with the second method that we could use by using the leverage because it's gonna pull away. Okay, so, as you could tell, it's starting to pull away from the differential there. I'm just gonna use this pry bar and I'm gonna use a little bit of leverage and see if this works. You're gonna need a tool that looks a lot like this. This is called a slide hammer. The way that this is gonna work, is this weighted unit right here is gonna slide and it's gonna kinda bonk up against it, and it's gonna draw this bearing out. Turn it just like this, slide it in there, put it right up against the bearing as close as you can. This particular tool has a nice big washer that's gonna go up against here, and then I'll just bottom this out.
Now, when you do this job, it's important to remember that, more than likely, the bearing is actually gonna come apart. All those little roller bearings inside of there are pretty much only held in by a teeny little sleeve. So, as we continue with this slide hammer, it's gonna put a lot of pressure on that small sleeve, more than likely it's gonna break and the bearings could come shooting out. So make sure you don't have any innocent bystanders around, make sure you're wearing your safety protection. Looks like it's actually coming out, that's a first. There it is friends. Now we're gonna use a rag and we're gonna clean up any of the debris or oil that's inside the end of this tube. Be careful for any sharp edges.
The next thing we're gonna do is take our brand new bearing here, and you're gonna want a bearing driver. It's gonna look a lot like this, and you wanna find a piece that's gonna fit directly over it. You don't wanna hang in too far over and you especially don't want it to only hit on the bearings or the roller bearings in here. It needs to go along that outer edge. At this point, we'll just take the bearing, put it into the differential tube, as far as we can. It should pretty much stay there. But of course you don't wanna let it drop and damage it. Put your driver on there, grab your hammer. And of course, watch your hands.
We're gonna keep listening, it's gonna sound like it's going bonk, bonk, bonk, bonk, bing. And when it goes bing, that means that it made the audible sound that lets you know it's completely bottomed out. So I did a whole bunch of bonking and we're probably pretty close to the bing. So, that's it right there. That's telling me that that bearing is completely inside the differential tube and it's seated as it needs to be. Just work this back out of here, take a peek inside, make sure that you didn't cause any damage to these roller bearings. They should all be able to roll around fairly freely.
Now it's gonna be time to install our new seal. There's gonna be a couple of things we need to think about before we do this. Using the original seal driver or a bearing driver that we used just isn't gonna be large enough. It can go up against on the inside portion and damage your seal. You need to get the next size up or the corresponding size that goes up against this rim. So, this one fits right over, perfect.
The next thing we need to think about is the backside of the seal. If you were to look along it, you're gonna see a nice spring, that needs to be on the rubber area. The problem is, is it tends to break free unless you put some form of lubricant along here. I like to use a little bit of Vaseline or petroleum jelly, call it what you want, just grab a little fingerfull here, and then I'm gonna go right along that spring. I like to make it a little bit thick, it doesn't cost too much, a lot cheaper than a brand new seal because I ruined the spring. And, of course, you could probably put it back on if it did fall off, but just put that right on there. This looks great. I'll just coat all the rubber, because why not? And the great thing about the petroleum jelly is that it'll just dissipate and it won't cause any damage to the inside of the Differential.
The next thing we need to think about is along the edge of the seal. This is metal and the differential tube is metal. Well, we need some sort of sealant between there. So, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna clean off that petroleum jelly from my finger. I'm gonna grab a little bit of gasket maker. You can use just basic black RTV, just pretty much any kind of gasket maker. We'll make a nice line right down at like this. It doesn't have to be pretty, it's gonna be hidden, but you do wanna make sure that you make a seal going all the way around to keep moisture and debris out of there. Super important. That looks great. We'll put that aside.
Now we're gonna go ahead and grab our driver and our hammer. We'll set this right up on here. Oh, before we do that, just take a peek, make sure you don't have any debris or any type of gear oil in here. It needs to be completely dry. If you have any gear oil, the RTV or gasket maker isn't gonna work properly. Put it right up on there. I got my driver. We're gonna do the same thing, bonk, bonk, bonk, and then when you hear an audible change in sound, more than likely it's completely bottomed out. There it is. Well, we made a nice mess, so we'll just clean that up and then we'll move along.
Take some of your manufacturer-specified fluid, 75-90. If you can't find LS version, which would mean limited-slip, that would be great. If you can't, you're gonna need an additive when it comes time to fill-in the differential. But 75-90 LS. Go ahead and squirt it in, put it on those bearings, spin the bearings around, make sure they're coated well.
Time to install the axle. If you were to take a peak right down along this area, you're gonna see the area where the bearing/seal is gonna ride. Clean that down completely and inspect it. If you can see any wear or grooves, especially where the seal is supposed to ride, which would be pretty close to right there, you know you have an issue. Just carefully go over along the top of that seal, be careful not to drag the axle along it very much though, because you could potentially ruin it. Just go right in here. At this point, I can feel that it stopped. Is it all the way in while you can tell that it isn't. The reason why it stopped is because down at the other end, there's the gears with the little notches that are gonna have to line up with the splines on the axle. At this point, you can just kinda grab this and wiggle it around. If you push down over here, it's gonna lift up on the pumpkin side and hopefully you'll be able to align it. Okay. That just slid right in perfectly. Let's move along.
Now, our next step is kinda gonna be a twofer. What we need to do is we need to get this clip back up and around that axle. And then once we do, we need to keep it there and grab the outer portion of the axle and draw it back away so it holds it in this clip. Just slide this right up in there. I'm gonna grab the axle, carefully slide it, watch for any pinch points. Okay. So now you wanna take a peek up inside there. You wanna make sure that that horseshoe or the clip that is shaped like a horseshoe is all the way up inside and you wanna barely be able to see it. If you can see a whole bunch of it, more than likely it's not completely in.
Now, let's step away from the pumpkin for a second and get right over to the axle. The reason why I wanted to do that is because I want us to grab onto it and give it a nice tug. You need to make sure that this axle is not able to pull out of your differential. If it can at this point, you need to stop, get back over there and fix that clip.
Next thing we need to do, we need to be super careful for, because we're gonna be taking our finger, putting it back inside this hole right here and being super careful for any pinch points, because we're gonna need to spin that differential, bring this back around so we can get the pin up through and of course the mounting screw back in. There we go. Okay. So I can see where the pin is gonna have to come through. I can see where the bolt is gonna go through. I have plenty of clearance to be able to swing my wrench. Put your finger in there and just make sure that the hole lines up. If it doesn't, you can go ahead and just try to line it up just simply by spinning it a little bit, and then that should be perfect.
Now, talking about reinstalling the screw, you wanna make sure you pay special attention to the threads. If you see any thread locker on there, or if it looks as though the pin is damaged in any way, it's probably a great idea to either clean it up or replace it if need be. Now, I used a little bit of blue thread locker on this. I would definitely not recommend using no thread locker and I would also definitely not recommend using red thread locker. Red thread locker is gonna be super hard to get this out someday. With that said, we'll set it aside for one second. And then, although I don't recommend using parts cleaner inside of your differential because of the clutch gears and everything, I do actually recommend using it only inside of this little hole where the threads for the screw is gonna be. So I'm just gonna grab my rag, I'm gonna direct it in specifically with my hose and only use what needs be to clean out any of the gear oil that might be inside there. Make sure you clean that up as well. Great. Inspect it real quick for any imperfections, such as a crack going down it or any sort of damage that looks apparent. This looks good.
Next, what I'm gonna do is continue on by installing this. I wanna make sure that the hole on the pin is facing down where the hole for the screw is gonna go through. If it doesn't seem like it wants to go through, you just need to align the gears on the inside. Just keep working at it, should wanna go. Don't go too far because then you have to, of course, get in there and push it back down. Keep your finger over this so it can't fall down. Grab that bolt with the thread locker on it. Go ahead and put it right on through there. Now we're gonna snug this up. Just to say, it's always a great idea to go ahead and replace this pinion shaft locking bolt. Either way, whether you're replacing it or not, for torquing it, the 8.6-inch axle or rear differential, you wanna torque that bolt to 27 foot-pounds. For the larger rear differential or axle, the 9.5 inch, you're gonna wanna torque that to 37 foot-pounds.
So now it's time to take a look at our differential pan cover. This looks great. We cleaned it up. I did both sides. I made sure that there's nothing on the magnet or at least as little as possible, especially in terms of large chunks of metal. This looks good. Let's take some gasket maker or unless you, of course, bought a specific gasket that goes to this. If you have a specific gasket that's made of cork, or paper, or anything like that, do not use any gasket maker with it. Assuming you're not one of those specific gaskets, go with this RTV. I'm just gonna go right along, go around the hole. This is gonna make a nice watertight seal. Make sure you don't have any debris or anything like that on any of these gears. And then just take a nice clean rag with maybe some solvent on it and just clean up any of this gear oil that might be on here, because this is gonna affect the gasket.
We've got our plate or rear diff cover. We've got a lot of silicone on there, that looks great, or RTV. We're just gonna put it so the bump or the bumpout area is facing towards where the pinion gear is. Go ahead and line it up up there. We'll take our bolts. You do not need to use any thread locker on these.
Start them all in. Now it's gonna be time to snug all these up, do it in a criss-cross manner. Now we're gonna go ahead and torque these down to 30 foot-pounds. Let's go ahead and grab this cable, get it right into that bracket. Make sure that it's secured, it cannot flap around. But if you used RTV, you're gonna need to let it set and even dry, because if you use gear oil inside of it right now, it's gonna potentially mess up the effect of the sealing agent of this RTV, and you might end up having leaks. If, of course, you did use an original gasket, or a paper gasket, or cork, or whatever you might've used, and it was not a chemical such as RTV, you can, of course, go ahead and fill it now.
The next thing that we need to do is clean up the mating surface where the rotor's gonna match up against the axle. If it's all bumped up like this or rough in any way, just go ahead and sand it down with something. Now that the majority of the area is nice and clean and sanded down. We need to continue on by getting in between the lug studs and the rest of the hub area here, right in there. If you notice there's large buildup, you can use something like this, maybe a scraper or even a flathead screwdriver, just kinda get the majority of it up and then you can take a nice brush and just work at the rest. Now we're gonna spray down the mating areas with some copper never-seize.
Before you go ahead and put your rotor back on there, look at the backside. This is the area that's gonna meet up against the axle. You need to make sure that's nice and clean as well. Now that we've cleaned up the backside of the rotor, we're just gonna place it over the axle like this, push it all the way in and it should go over the emergency brake shoes. If it doesn't go over the emergency brake shoes, de-adjust your adjuster. If it does go over, but you feel as though there's no drag at all, you're probably gonna wanna adjust it up a little bit. What you're actually gonna wanna do right now is get it so it's semi-close. So you can hear the shoes just barely dragging in there. Okay? That's the sound of the shoes hitting up against the inside drum portion of this rotor. If it's too tight and you try to turn it and it just doesn't wanna turn, then you know that it's over-adjusted. If your brakes are over-adjusted, they're gonna overheat and you're gonna have major braking issues.
Now it's gonna be time to get the caliper back on the vehicle. Before you go ahead and do that, you need to make sure that you clean all the existing thread locker off of these bolts. And I always like to replace it with some new thread locker of my own. Put the caliper around here. Make sure that your pads are situated inside the brackets as they need to be. They might keep wanting to fall out if they're like mine. Go ahead and grab those caliper mounting bolts. Start them both in. Now we'll snug them up and we'll torque them to 148 foot-pounds. Get our torque wrench.
The next thing I always like to do at this point is to make sure I pump up the brake. Now it's gonna be time to fill your rear differential. You need to make sure you go with the manufacturer-specified fluid. For this particular application, the manufacturer recommends full synthetic 75-90 with limited slip additive. If you look right here, you're gonna see 75W-90, right? If you saw something that went along the next couple of letters would say LS, that would stand for limited slip. This one doesn't have an LS, so you need to go out and get yourself an additive that says limited-slip supplement or additive.
Once you put in your additive completely, you're gonna continue topping it off until it comes up just below this fill plug right here. So you can go ahead and put your finger in, take a peek, and if it seems like your finger is getting really wet, then more than likely you're at the level you need to be. Okay. So, at this point, I've just put in my limited-slip additive, and I've put in one full bottle and a little bit under another full bottle. It just barely started trickling out the top, so I stopped there. Now, what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna wait for this to continue trickling out as much as possible. Optimally, at the level that you want your fluid to be at when your differential is sitting on a nice level surface, such as the ground, would be just about one-eighth of an inch below that fill hole. Doing that on the lift is a little bit different, of course, because the suspension is hanging, and if you're doing it on jacks or jack stands in the yard, depending on if you have the jack stands under the differential tube, that could work. But if you have it underneath the frame to try to lift the vehicle, it's gonna be kinda slanted like ours is here.
With that said, if you can get your level approximately one-eighth of an inch down below this fill hole, that's exactly where you want it. Next, it's gonna be time to put our rear differential plug back in there. Just take a quick look at it and make sure it's in good condition. If you look at the threads and it looks like they're rotted, or maybe they're not gonna make a good connection on the differential, you probably wanna replace it. If you have any type of sealant around here, you probably wanna get it off of there. If it looks as though the inside of this area is getting stripped out and it's not in very good condition, and you don't think that you'll be able to either tighten it up or even remove it further on down the line, it's probably a great idea to just go ahead and replace that plug. This one looks decent, so I'm just gonna wipe it down and put it in there. Now we'll just snug it up until it bottoms out. That's it right there. Clean up your mess.
When you're doing the bearings on this. Yes, we did pre-lubricate them with a little bit of gear oil, and that was great. Something that you need to remember is you need to tip the rear differential. What I mean by that is you wanna jack up the opposite side that you were working on. So if we wee working on the passenger side, doing the bearing over here, we would wanna jack up the left rear axle, bring that up. So the differential is gonna go from being nice and level so that it comes up and it's gonna allow some of that fluid that's inside that rear differential pumpkin in the center to work its way down the tube, coming right down here, and then it's gonna make its way down to the end, and it's gonna help lubricate the bearings that are in there. Let that sit for approximately 5 to 10 minutes. And then it's probably a good habit to go ahead and do the same in the opposite direction, mainly to help out the other bearing as well. Once you've done that, level it back out and move along.
Now it's gonna be time to get the wheel up on here. Let's start on those lug nuts, and then we'll bottom them out and we'll torque them to 140 foot-pounds. Let's torque them. Double-check them if you want. And if you have a center cover, put that on as well. Let's make sure we double-check that brake fluid, give it a wiggle. It looks as though this is low. There's the maximum line. Open this up. We're gonna add some DOT 3 brake fluid. Bring it right up to that maximum line. Make sure you close it back up. Down the road you go.
Tools used
I'm gonna take the center cap off, use a straight-blade screwdriver. Get it off. Use the 22-millimeter socket. Take off the lug nuts. Take the wheel off. Take these two caliper bolts out. I'm gonna use a 12-millimeter socket, and then, a 16-millimeter wrench just to hold the slide from spinning. Loosen these up. Now just use a screwdriver. Pry the caliper off.
And you can use a caliper hanger, just support it from the upper control arm right there. Just make sure there's no tension on the hose. Slide it over here. Take the brake pads off, use the same straight-blade screwdriver. And take an 18-millimeter socket. Take these two caliper bracket bolts up. Take these bolts out. And slide the bracket right off.
Now take the rotor off. It's stuck on there, just take a hammer. Give it a tap in these areas, just try not to hit the studs. Should be loose. Try not to breathe any of that in. Remove the rear wheels and remove the rear brakes on both sides.
Now, I removed the spare tire. You don't need to but it gives you a little extra room. And I need to remove this bar from this side. I'm gonna take this bolt out. And there's a nut on the other side. So use a 21-millimeter wrench or 13/16, and a 21-millimeter socket. Take this out.
I'm just gonna use a pry bar to pry this out. And if it's in your way, just use a bungee cord. Just get that out of the way. Some of these bolts are pretty rusty, so just use a wire brush, try to get some of the rust off. It's always a good idea, before you remove the cover, especially if you have to reuse it, to pull the fill plug out first. Just to make sure you're able to. Because if this fill plug is stuck in there, you're not gonna be able to add fluid. And just use an extension. And you might have to use a screwdriver to clean anything out. Just use a pocket screwdriver, clean some of the rust out. Take a hammer...tap it in there. And pick this out.
I'm gonna take a 13-millimeter socket, an extension. Because these are rusty, I'm gonna hammer these on a little bit...and loosen this up. This one has the brake-line bracket, just grab that and just pull that out of the way a little bit. Try to get some of that extra rust off of there. I'll take these all up. Make sure you have a drain bucket underneath because you're gonna wanna catch the fluid.
Okay, all those bolts are out. Except for the top one, it's just a little loose. Just take a pry bar and a screwdriver and just slowly pry the cover out. Let the fluid drain in your drain bucket. Take that top bolt out...and grab the cover. Just slide it off.
We wanna take this pin off. If your rear differential or the carrier is not indexed so that you can access this, you're gonna have to put the transmission in neutral and rotate the drive shaft until you get to this point. Then use an 8-millimeter wrench, or a socket, and loosen up this pin. Take this bolt out which has got a pin on the end of it that holds that pin in there. And we can just slide this out. Just like that.
So, now make sure your vehicle's in neutral. Then you're gonna rotate the drive shaft. You wanna get to this point where you can see where the clips are gonna be. There you go, push on the axle. Push it in so you can access the clips that hold the axles in. You should be able to access the clips. Use a magnet, try to get the clip out. A little too far. There we go. And slide that out.
You just wanna make sure you don't rotate it because, when you rotate it, you're gonna mess up the spider gears here and it's gonna be very hard to reinstall those. So, then just grab the axle and slide it out. And it might be kind of difficult. You can use a piece of wood to give you a little more leverage. And just carefully slide this. Eventually, it'll be a little bit easier. There we go. Just grab the axle and slide it up.
Now I'm gonna use an axle seal puller. There's many different seal pullers you can try to use. Most of them don't really work that great. This works okay sometimes, but a lot of times it's gonna end up ripping the seal. Let's see. Just like that normally what happens, you know, just try using a pry bar. And there we go. You just wanna be careful not to scratch the inside. Pop it off. You don't wanna scratch that. And it came out good.
Now we're gonna need a bearing removal tool, something similar to this. We'll have to use this in combination with the slide hammer and just slide this in. What happens is, when this slide's in, then you want this to go like this. And then, we'll tighten this washer down and that'll hold it. All right. Now we're gonna slide this out. As you can see, the bearing's starting to move. Here we go. And take the new bearings. And you want an installer that's smaller than the outer case of the bearings but you don't want it so small that it's pushing on the little rollers. So, I'll just slide this in position. Make sure it's nice and flat. Take a hammer and tap it in. It's good.
And you can take a little bit of emery cloth or some sandpaper, even a little scuff pad, and just sand some of this rust away if there's any. Just clean that up. All right. Now take the new seal. You can use a seal installer, just make sure it's big enough to fit on the outside edge of the seal. And if you don't have a seal installer, you can actually just use a block of wood, which actually most of the time works better. And just take a hammer, just give it a tap. Looks good.
Now, before I put the axle in, I'm just gonna take a little bit of the axle lubricant, just pre-lube these bearings. You could do this before you put them in, if you wanted to. And take the axle and just slide it in. And you're gonna wanna hold it up a little bit. It may take a little bit of practice trying to get it to line up in the carrier. There we go. And, if you twist it, just don't twist it too much because you don't wanna mess up those spider gears. You know, just push it in. Now grab this retainer, or a clip, slide that back in position, while you're holding it right there, just take a pry bar, pry it out on the axle. That's good, it's in place. You can do the same procedure for the other side.
All right. So those retainers are back in place. We can turn the drive shaft back to line this pin in, pin up that to line up. And then, make sure you put the hole, so that we could put that other retainer in there. I'm gonna have to tap this a little bit. Use the backside of a hammer or something. And then, take this screw that's got the pin on it. Get that to line up. And tighten this down. And tighten this up. Try to tighten it about how tight it was when you took it out. If you can get a torque wrench in there and you have an 8.6-inch rear end, you're gonna tighten that bolt to 27-foot-pounds. And if you have a 9.5-inch rear end, you're gonna tighten that to 37-foot-pounds.
At this time, you can put the transmission back in park. All right. And you're gonna take a razor blade or a scraper and just scrape off the old gasket material. Do this on the housing. And then, if you're gonna reuse your old cover, you wanna scrape it off the cover as well. You could also use a scuff pad to try to clean some of that up. And then, just use some brake parts cleaner on a rag, wipe it down.
Now take the cover. We have a new cover that we're putting on. Just line the gasket up like that. There's a bigger part of the gasket that goes on the ring side. Slide the cover in place...and then, get all the bolts started. And make sure you pull this bracket over. I'm gonna torque these bolts to 30-foot-pounds. And we're gonna do that clockwise. So, go right around. All right, take this bungee cord down...and slide this bar back into position. The bolt, line the bolts up. You might have to pry the whole axle over a little bit right there. There we go. Take the nut, put the nut on the backside. And tighten this up. Put the wrench on the backside, get that good and snug. Take a 10-millimeter hex bit and loosen up this fill plug. This new cover has a fill plug on it. Or you could always go to the fill plug that's on the differential. If you loosen that one up earlier, make sure you tighten that up. Take that off.
If you have a rear limited slip differential, you're gonna wanna add limited slip fluid additive. And if you're not sure, it doesn't hurt to add some anyway. But you always put that in first. And a lot of times a lot of the fluids have the additive already in it but it's always good to add a little extra anyway. And you're gonna fill up the rear differential until the fluid starts pouring out of the fill hole. To determine what kind of fluid, you can always check your owner's manual. Yep. And you wanna make sure the fluids right up to the bottom of the fill hole. Normally, plug it off for a minute and double-check. Yep. It's right up there. Let that drip out for a second. Now take the fill plug. Get that started. Make sure the gasket's on there. Yeah, and snug this up. That's good.
And take a rag, just wipe off the excess. If you have a little underneath, use a little brake parts cleaner. Now you can reinstall the brakes on both sides and put the wheels on. You're just gonna clean up this surface right here and you can use a wire brush or some type of grinding wheel. Just be careful, you don't wanna take too much material off, just get some of the rust off.
Take a little anti-seize. Just put it on the hub area right here. Yeah, we're just gonna put the rotor on backwards first. And we're gonna clean off the surface. Use a little brake parts cleaner. There is a protective coating on this. Clean that off. You can clean off the inside of the drum area as well for the parking brake. Flip it around and clean off this area as well.
When you go to put the rotor on, you may have to adjust the parking brake. You can spin that wheel either forward or backward and it'll either tighten it or loosen it. Just slide the rotor on, just to make sure it spins good. And then, double check with your parking brake and adjust accordingly. Slide the brake caliper bracket in place, put the bolts in. You can use a little thread locking compound on the bolts.
Now I'm gonna torque these bolts to 122-foot-pounds. Now I'm gonna install the brake pads. Make sure you have the brake-pad warning indicator facing up...on the outside and also on the inside. Now take a brake caliper off. Take the hanger off. I have to compress the caliper, so use a brake caliper compressing tool, just compress it really slow. This is gonna push the fluid through the hoses back through the lines, back up to the master cylinder and into the reservoir. Just go nice and slow. All right, that's compressed. Pull the compressing tool out.
Now we have a new little bracket right here, comes with the brake kit. Just take a straight-blade screwdriver. This little tab right here, just push in on that tab. Slide that off, take the new one. Slide it in there. Just push it, lock it in place so that's in there just like that. That's just gonna push down on the pads to just keep them from rattling around. Slide the caliper over the brake pads in the bracket. Take the two bolts, install the bolts. I'm gonna put some thread-locking compound on those bolts and use my 16-millimeter wrench, 12-millimeter socket, torque these bolts to 31-foot-pounds. And reinstall the wheel. Put the lug nuts on.
Now we're gonna torque these lug nuts to 140-foot-pounds, in a star pattern, to tighten the wheel down evenly. And just go around again. Double check. And reinstall the center cap. Now we're gonna pump the brake pedal nice and slow. There's gonna be an air gap between the caliper piston and the brake pad. So we wanna eliminate that air gap. Once the pedal feels good, then you're all set. Check the brake fluid level in the master cylinder reservoir. There's the minimum line right there and the max line right there. Adjust accordingly.
Tools used
