My Blue Jeep

[Ron84cj]

I put the axle up on jack stands and got right to it. First I pulled the cover to let it drain out. Then onward to the axles. First removed the 4 bolts that hold them in.

After I got those out I flipped the brake drum around and put the lug nuts back on 3 complete turns and used it as a slide hammer. They both popped out with a few smacks on each side.

In order to get the pinion nut off I used a pipe wrench and a breaker bar with a pipe on it. Yup, I'm sure that's considered naughty but I don't have a working air compressor out there right now for my impact gun.

 

[Ron84cj]

Now to the bearing caps. I scratched a little L and R on them so I know which side they came from.

The whole assembly didn't just fall out when I removed the caps. It was actually pretty darn tight. I don't have a case spreader so I used another old school trick. I simply put a rag on the ring gear and rotated the pinion. The rag wedging itself between the ring gear and the pinion gear pushed out the whole assembly.

Yay! It worked!

 

[Ron84cj]

Now that I have that out I went to remove the pinion. I took the axle off of the jack stands and put it faced down on 2 old 4x4s. I put the nut back on which I now regret. I gave it a few good hard smacks with my sledgehammer and popped the bearing out. But the crappy part is that I damaged the threads and couldn't get the nut back off so I just cut it off with my grinder. If I wanted to save the gears I would have put it in a press instead hitting it with a hammer. They are worthless 2.73 gears so I didn't care, but I wanted the old nut for setup on the new gear set. Oh well. Live and learn right?

And everything is out sitting on my work bench. At this point I have to cut the bearings off of the shafts so I can get the backing plates off and still remove the seals and bearing race from the housing. I had to stop to go home to put the kiddos to bed. So that's it for now.

 

[bigwalton]

Great stuff man Looking forward to seeing the whole family at Sandblast in it

 

[Ron84cj]

Finally got the ball rolling! Early last week I ordered my parts and got them in time for the weekend. If you want to see something pretty entertaining, check this out...
This is how I received just the gears from 4wd hardware. They put my box of gears inside of another really really big box! Lol. Unnecessary but ok. Anyways I also got the G2 install kit as well as a new cross pin for the carrier. The old one definitely had some wear.
I bought the carriers used from Jimschopshop several years ago and the bearings were still on them. I rented this bearing separator from Autozone to get them off. It worked great!

 

[tower210]

Keep up the great work!!

Great thread on tearing down an axle!!

 

[Ron84cj]

On an AMC 20 the shims do not go between the bearings and the carrier. They go between the outer race and the housing. Same goes for the inner pinion bearing. So I was able to press on the new bearings right away. The only set up bearing I had to make was the outer pinion bearing. I simply used a sanding flap wheel on the inside of the old bearing to make it more of a slip fit. Since the outer pinion bearing has no affect on the pinion depth, I just used the old bearing. But for differentials that need set up bearings like the Dana 30, there is no way I would use old bearings. A lot of people say you can and I strongly disagree. I've measured old bearings and compared them to new ones. Sometimes they are very close and other times they can have a height difference of .002-.004! To give perspective the AMC 20 requires .008 total of preload. Just buy a second set of the same brand bearings instead and it will get you closer. So, onward! I put the bearings in front of the heater vents in my Camry for a few minutes to help a little with pressing them on. You'd be surprised how hot they got. The carrier was cold from being in the garage for a while (it was only like 20 something degrees) I put just a little film of oil where the bearings go and they all pressed on without much effort.

 

[Ron84cj]

After that I installed the outer race.
But for the inner race I bought an extra to make a set up race. The shims go between the race and the housing so you want a race that JUST slips in so you can add or remove shims as needed for pinion depth.
Now that that's done I went on to my aussie locker. This is what you all get.

You have to take a measurement first before you put it together for good. First put a film of grease on the thrust washer like so...

Then put the outer gears in the carrier along with the spacers and center pin. Where I have the feeler gauges in the pic is what your checking. It should be between .006 to .020. On mine I was able to get a .007 in there but was a bit tight. The .006 gauge slipped in comfortably.

 

[Ron84cj]

Now that I know it's good it can put it together for good. Grease everything as you put it together. It's pretty straight forward.

I got a new roll pin too. When I pounded out the old one it went flying! Lol. I absolutely have no idea where it went. I gave up trying to find it after probably 20 minutes. The none ring gear side is drilled a little bit bigger for installing the roll pin. I used an old drill. (I know I know...shame). Pound it in until it's flush with the other side.
Next the pins and little springs get installed. Here is where I went wrong... This is the picture from the instructions.

So I installed them like this...

This is NOT the right way to install them!

 

[Ron84cj]

They are supposed to go like this.

I thought the pic in the instructions really sucked. Or maybe I'm the idiot, who knows. But the problem with putting them in wrong is the locker never unlocks while turning. It acts like a spool. I didn't discover this until the end so if you see the wrong orientation in any up coming pics. Just ignore it.

After that I put the carrier in the housing and kept adding shims to each side until I had zero slop side to side. It's a little deceiving when you get close so make sure you put an indicator against where the ring gear goes. Then gently "pry" the carrier side to side and make sure the indicator doesn't move. Once you accomplish this spin the carrier to check run-out. The AMC 20 should have no more than .002 max. I'm about .0017 so I'm good.
Then clean the surface and the sides where the ring gear goes. Then clean it again, then one more time for good measure.

 

[Ron84cj]

I picked up some longer bolts to install the ring gear. It fits on there pretty snug so the bolts pull it on as well as keep the holes lined up.
Clean the ring gear up too. The surfaces, the threads, everything.

Then it can start coming together a little bit at a time. Obviously you want to tighten the bolts down as evenly as possible. But before it's fully seated STOP!
When you still have a little gap take an air gun and blow it out one last time. Do you think I'm nuts yet??? If yes, you are definitely right!
Then proceed to tighten it all the way.

The bolt pictured is what G2 supplied me in their install kit. They instructed me to put red loctite on in addition to what is already on the bolts. Torque them down in a criss cross pattern to 65 ft. lbs. You can put it in a vise to do this but be careful. Use a rag and don't tighten the vise down on your locker!

 

[Ron84cj]

As far as the pinion depth goes... I think using whatever shim was in there originally is a great place to start. So I threw in the shim between the race and houseing as pictured here.

On the end of the pinion is the depth. The standard depth on the AMC 20 I believe is 2.547. So you could compare the numbers on your old pinion gear to add or subtract shims as needed. But on my old pinion you absolutely could not tell what it said.

Now to check backlash. Try to position the indicator as straight on to the teeth as possible and also check in multiple spots. It should be between .006-.010. Try to get .008.

 

[Ron84cj]

I should have mentioned this before the backlash. When you put the pinion gear in, put the yoke and old pinion nut on and tighten it down little bit by little bit. You don't want to use your new nut because it's a one time use lock nut. I ended up having to buy a second one because I destroyed mine. You are looking for 14 -19 INCH pounds ROTATIONAL torque. So you will need an old school style of torque wrench. NOT a clicker style. Tighten the nut down and check the torque while rotating. This was fun getting this picture.

Now you can put in the carrier in and get the right amount of backlash like I previously mentioned. Once you do. Paint the drive side and coast side of the teeth.

Rotate the pinion gear around multiple times as well as going back and forth so you can see what it's doing on the drive and coast side. While rotating put your other hand on the ring gear to give it some resistance. Then check your pattern.

My pinion was too far away. So I added a little more to the pinion and tried again. Make sure you check the backlash every time you adjust the pinion depth. It seemed that for every .005 you change the pinion depth, it changes the backlash about .002. I had this thing together and apart probably 20 times. Lol
Getting closer...

I got these from Randy ring and pinion. These should help.

 

[Ron84cj]

After the last photo I think I only added only .001 or .002 to the pinion and my pattern looked great. So I took it all apart including the dumby race and installed my real one.


After that the pinion gear can go back in along with the real outer bearing and the seal. Make sure you don't forget to put the crush sleeve in (between the inner and outer bearing).
Put some oil on the pinion seal and install the yoke. You can put the new nut on now. Even though it's a lock nut, I put on some blue loctite too just in case. Like I mentioned earlier.... Tighten down the nut in very small increments when you get close. It absolutely sucks crushing the crush sleeve and it's very easy to accidentally over tighten the nut for your rotational torque. If you do go past your 14 to 19 inch pounds, you have to take it back apart and replace the crush sleeve. If you over do it, you can't just back off the nut. The sleeve is junk.

So now that's done so I went on to installing the carrier. But now is the time to add the extra .004 to each side for the carrier preload. I tried getting them in for an hour and just couldn't do it without wrecking the shims. So I ended up taking one of the extra shims and taking it to work to grind it down. I am a toolmaker by trade so I have access to a precision grinder. So I ground it down from.101 to I think it was somewhere around .090. Took it home and got it in. It was a lot easier to tap in one solid shim instead of a ton of really thin shims that kept wanting to fold over. Also, use a soft face hammer of sorts when you do this. I honestly have no idea how anyone could get the stack of thin shims in without a case spreader. I was being very careful and it just wasn't happening. Put the caps back on and torque the bolts to 65 ft. Lbs. Check your backlash and your pattern in multiple places one last time to make sure and your gears are officially installed!

 

[Ron84cj]

I know I forgot to take a few photos here and there showing what I was doing. Sorry about that. I'll try to do better when I get to the Dana 30.

 

[CJ7Pilot]

This is a great tutorial!

I've only done this once, but I'll be doing it again before too long. I've got a Detroit to install, probably with new gears, so I'll be starting from scratch shim-wise.

Being able to cut one-piece carrier shims is key! I don't know how I'm going to manage that... I remember trying to get shim packs to slide in to place, and it was no fun!

Nice job!

 

[Ron84cj]

Cj7pilot, once you figure out what thickness you need for the final install, just take one of the thicker shims and have a local tool and die shop grind it down for you. I ground mine exactly to size on my 10 minute break at work. So there is not much labor and very highly doubt they will charge you much if at all. At my old job we had locals come in every once in a while for little jobs like this. As long as it was something quick and easy it just wasn't a big deal.

 

[Ron84cj]

The one piece axles I bought are Ten Factory Brand. As I previously mentioned they are only $195 at quadratec which is about $100 cheaper than most others. At first I was a bit nervous about it but I started reading some very positive things about them on other forums. Also a local shop to me that does a lot of axle rebuilds said they use them all the time with great success. So I gave them a try. Here is a pic from the instructions for the order to assemble things.

Put the space in with the lip to the outside.

Then the bearing like so. You will notice that the inner race on the bearing sticks out a little further than the outer. You need to measure the outside race to the housing. The bearing should stick out .020 to .060.


Mine stuck out .080 on both sides. The instructions say to either to either grind down the spacer on the side with the lip or use the factory shims used for the 2 piece axles. I chose to grind them because I'd rather have the bearing further in the axle. So yesterday I took them to work to grind them. Re-checked them and both are at about .050

 

[Ron84cj]

Now the seals can go in and put the spacers back in. Also pack the wheel bearings with grease and press on the studs.



Now I need the backing plates. To get them off I just cut up the bearings and pull everything off.

 

[Ron84cj]

When you go to press on the bearing, don't forget about the out seal and dust cover.

Put oil on the seals and the shafts to help with pressing on the bearing and lock ring.

Then just bolt the whole assembly in. My old bolts were pretty rusty so I got new ones. Make sure you put rtv between the housing and backing plate and between the outer seal and backing plate. Tighten it down and all done!

After that I bolted in the axle, bled brakes, etc. I also forgot to mention something else, I drilled out the threads on the yoke and installed u bolts instead of the dippy straps as well as new u joints.