PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum - View Single Post

Cervan · #18 05-01-2010, 05:05 AM

I actually just rebuilt one of these, its EXTREMELY easy to do. First off a diff rebuild is not that expensive if you do your own work, pulling the diff is probibally an hour job and rebuilding it is maybie a 4 hour job if you go real slow.

If your just going to replace the pinion seal then you need to make sure the bearing doesnt need replaced as well, if it does then your just throwing money away since if the bearings are bad they are just going to make the seal leak anyways, so check the bearings and you MUST check the rotating torque in both directions with the axles off with a beam type torque wrench. Make sure you write it down, also count the threads or measure how far down the nut is also index the nut to the shaft.

now if your just going to install a new seal its super super easy, remove yoke after marking/measuring rotating torque pry off yoke and pry out old seal, reinstall new seal and yoke with sealant on the splines/nut then torque it down to the indexing to the shaft. (do NOT go past the indexing of the shaft, if you need to preload it more to get the same rotating torque as spec your bearings are worn and need replacing) The way it works is your have a crush sleeve inside that you crush to create preload crush it too much and you wont have preload you will have endplay.

Anyways... if you want to install new bearings its easy as cake on these diffs because they have shims that you simply take out and put the new bearings in and put the shims back in on the same side since the bearings are machined to within .0005 thou of eachother.

its better to be a little loose than tight, if your too tight it would eventually wear the bearings out too quickly. a little loose and as long as your not pounding on it then it wouldnt cause terrible damage until the bearing started to wear in and loosen up.