AFARR

Had the hum/whine on both acceleration and deceleration....figured I'd pull the rear diff cover and check things out.

The pinon seems rock solid...no wobble, etc. when pulling or shaking the driveshaft. The Ring and Pinon gears are good.

No major chunks of metal in the diff...but the 'upper' and 'lower' spider gears are missing chips out of the tops of the teeth.

So, I ordered the proper spider gears (the set includes the washers, pin and bolt to retain it).

The wheel bearings seem fine..but since the axle is out, should I just pull them anyway (they're cheap enough to do)...or is it not worth the bother?

Anything else to do in the diff case while the back is off of it?

Any way to check the pinion bearing (and other stuff) other than pulling on the driveshaft?

Thanks!

dave1123

If the spiders are chipped, check the axle drive gears. Those are the ones the axles are splined into. With the spiders out, pull the C-clips and axles, then they should slide right out. You can check their condition without pulling them. Just rotate the axles.

You should check the pinion with a dial indicator. Even small motions of the pinion will be detected. Once you can visibly see looseness, it's too late.

I drag raced my 67 SS Camero and broke that cross shaft twice. It was a 4.10 Posi 12 bolt diff. The first time, I just replaced the shaft. The second time, it took the side gears with it so I had to rebuild the entire carrier assembly. In my axle, there were clutch packs behind the side gears. Yours may be pressed into bearings, IDK.

Replacing pinion bearings is an exact science and getting the preload correct is the most important part of the fix. They are also the weakest link in the D35. There is an excellent writeup on this forum but it's old and is about regearing the D44a, but the procedure is the same. There are no pictures, but the description is clear enough. With the D44a, you have to use a case spreader to get the carrier out. Not so on the D35.

Good luck and keep us informed about what you find. It may help someone else.

AFARR

Will do. The other gears are fine (already pulled them out)...I have the wheel bearings and will do them this weekend once the spider gear set comes in. I'll probably not do the pinion bearing (both the pinion and ring gears look fine) right now. But I will monitor for any worsening of the noise. It will likely be a 'winter' project (once the daughter's off school for a few weeks and I can do it in the garage) to do the bearings in there....didn't take long to get it apart at all......if it takes a couple of hours to get into something, I'm certainly going to replace everything in there at the same time...this was about 30 minutes to get the axles out and diff cover off and spider gears off.

Definitely worth posting updates (see my other post on the stereo issues) as it is a big help to others..

AFARR