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pinion bearing spacer

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richberman

richberman

Jedi Warrior
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I need to replace my pinion bearings due to a gritty feeling and dead spot now that I've opened it up and cleaned it. My question is that while the bearings are available, the spacer (crush tube) is not. Is it possible to re-use the original one or is there another supplier who might have one? I've tried Moss, AH Spares and Tom's imports with no luck. Any ideas?
thanks,
rich
 
You might try https://www.ahead4healeys.co.uk/SUSPENSION---FRONT-ct190.html
If don't see it email them, they have a large supply of NOS parts and also a large network of small suppliers throughout the UK and Western Europe. I have been very happy and pleasantly surprised with their excellent service and quality.
 
Do you mean diff pinion? They don't use a crushable spacer. Solid spacer and shims which are entirely reusable.
 
I mean the spacer and shims which sit between the front and rear pinion bearings in the differential. I have not taken this apart yet, but I was told the spacer may need replacement. Something about if it's not done correctly the entire differential may bind up..preload, etc was mentioned.
rich
 
Replacing the bearings is reasonably straight forward. Replace the bearing on the pinion making sure that it is fully seated against the head of the pinion with the original stock SPACER in place. This sets the pinion gear at the right height for proper alignment of the crown gear. Making sure this bearing & spacer is FULLY seated is very important! Then put the pinion into the housing with the original spacer & shim pack in place, install nose bearing in place, next install universal joint flange, washer & nut and torque the nut to 140 FtLB. I leave the seal out at this point as you may have to adjust the shim pack and it's easier without the seal in place. Once torqued rotate the pinion. It should take 13-15 InLB of torque to turn [this is the bearing pre load] adjust the shim pack to get this. too loose reduce shim pack, too high increase shim pack.
Once the pinion is set then you install the crown gear & carrier into the housing and adjust its shim packs [ there is one on each side] to get 0.010 gear clearance [this is for lube film between teeth], and a slight bearing preload [ resistance to turn].
This should bring you back to original setup [should]. If you want to check for sure then it's time for the 'red lead & pursion blue'. You red lead the crown gear and pursion blue the pinion gears and look at the contact pattern. The contact pattern should be in the middle of the teeth. If not then it's time to change the spacer under the head of the pinion, and start over.
Have fun, Bob
 
Hi Rich, I strongly urge you to take the pumpkin to a shop to have the bearings replaced.
57 BN4 is correct, spacer and shims, no crush sleeve.
The reason I suggest a shop is that it is not just about bearing preload on the pinion. It is also about how far (deep) into the ring gear teeth the pinion teeth mesh and if you get this wrong bearing preload may be a minor problem. The shop manual has some good reading and descibes jigs/tools most of us don't have available. Setting up a diff is part science and part 'magic' I think - and you only want to do this once...Google and you will find a lot of info on differentail set-up methods

Curious what others have to say.

Good luck,
Dave
 
Sorry RF Thom, I was typing while you posted - that is a good description. And is why I take mine to a shop when work is needed.
Dave
 
^^ what he said!

The effort of diy-ing it and finding out it is still a whiner on the third attempt is not worth it IMO. It is one of the most heart sinking ah-FFS feelings I have ever had... There is a good reason diff shops survive today in this disposable front-wheel-drive era.

The relationship between pinion preload, pinion depth, crownwheel preload and crownwheel depth is not only complex but it is very fiddly to achieve because it requires pushing off and pressing on bearings every time you need to make an adjustment, not to mention needing a stash of different thickness washers. The factory technicians would have used special bearings they could just slip on and off until the correct wear pattern was achieved by trial and error, then pressed on the correct bearings when happy.

Andy.
 
ps: at trade school when I was a lad, our tutor taught us a saying: "toe and heel- move the wheel, face and flank- have a (cup of tea and contemplate removing the pinion bearings again)... This is in reference to the fact that the wear pattern moves opposite to what is intuitive when adjusting the diff settings.
 
Flippin' 'eck!!

Why are you all talkin' about adjustments to a diff, when it's not the differential at all you're working with? Just 'cos they share the same housing don't make 'em the same thing!
 
I went through this on my BT7. There is a very good description of the procedure in the shop manual. First off you need a dial gauge setup and and a proper set of shims. Therein lies the rub. Moss Motors has a selection of shims listed, however, when I ordered what I thought would be a set that would give me the proper backlash, the ones they sent me were the same thickness as the original set. What I wound up doing was using a punch to upset one of the original shims to increase its effective thickness to get the backlash within specs. I don't have it back in the car yet so I don't know how successful I was. Bottom line you probably should get someone how knows what they're doing to do this. Maybe someone on here can suggest a good shop.
 
I've done this . You don't need special tools . This was all functioning together at one time yes? And now just the pinion brgs are bad? The pinion depth is set by a spacer under the inner large cone, and the ring gear backlash set by shims inside of the carrier bearings , all set at the factory with new gears and brgs. and fit to a housing. Since bearings are made to very close tolerances , replacing the brgs. only will put the gears back to where the factory set it up initially . It won't make your gearset noisy where it wasn't before. Factor in some wear and all you're likely to have by not changing anything else is excess backlash which won't hurt anything. With that said , its critical that when you fit the pinion ( without a seal , slightly oiled brgs., original center spacer and shims), you feel a slight drag when spinning the flange by hand. This is the preload. A slight drag as opposed to free spinning. Thats it , you haven't changed pinion depth from factory set up so gear pattern will be the same. If when you've assembled the carrier you feel you have too much backlash then adjust that by moving shims under the appropriate carrier brg to move the ring gear closer to the pinion. You can paint the gears with white grease and inspect the drive side ring teeth pattern to be sure. Of course it should be dead quiet when turning over by hand too. Don't forget to install a new seal on the flange. I use an air impact on the pinion nut. Remember if it was easy to put a Healey " right" everyone would have one. Kevin
 
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