[ShredSled]

Just looking for some tips and input on the process before I go in and tackle it.
Was doing my rear brakes and noticed a LOT of up and down movement/play in the axle when I lift up on it, relative to the axle housing on jack stands... Anyone else notice this? Not sure how much, if any, movement is acceptable?

So I'm thinking of replacing the bearings and seals, as long as this is a procedure that can be done at home anyway.
Might even do some Ten Factory axles too if I'm going through the trouble.

Do I just pop the rear cover off and remove the c-clips, then remove calipers and the axles will slide out? Or is it more in depth than that?
Anyone happen to have photos of what the open end of a 10-bolt looks like with no axle in the housing? Will I need some sort of blind bearing puller?

 

[ShredSled]

Well looks like not much input here so I'll just jump into it and see how it goes.


Just ordered parts, hopefully they get here by Thursday when I have an evening off to tear into it.
Ordered:
- Motive Ten Factory axles #MGR-MG27129
- Timken outer bearings #TMK-513067
- Timken outer seals #TMK-4762N

And also some spicer 1330 u-joints, but that's not related to this project...
Picked up 3 bottles of Valvoline 80w90 gear oil also. Gonna need to find a gasket for my rear-end cover too, can't remember what I used with this TA Girdle cover that is on there...?
And I will probably need to borrow a slide hammer and bearing fitting from a local parts shop.

Hopefully that does it, and all the part #'s are correct!
I'll try to take some pics as I do it and post up here.


...oh, and I'm assuming C-clips on the axles are reuseable?

 

[2005_Silverado]

Use some permatex super grey gasket maker...i don't use gaskets on the axle cover...specially with the thick ass flange on the TA axle cover.

clips are reusable...my gear guy just pushed the axle in a lil and used a magnet pen to remove it.

Ive never done bearings on 10 bolts but the ones I did on my D44 were easy with the slide hammer bearing remover.

 

[BENT]

they are not really pressed in they are just pushed in on a 10 bolt. I made a homemade puller out of flat bar and some threaded rod to get mine out. But a good slide hammer should work. Not a whole lot to it.

 

[ShredSled]

Cool sounds good.
Just a waiting game right now hoping my parts get here this week.
A local parts store has free rental on a slide hammer kit, so that helps out.
And yeah, I'll see what I have under that TA cover when I pop it off. Hopefully not too much scraping involved. Then I'll just use some high-temp gasket maker and make a bead around all the bolt holes.


Dumb question, but I just thought of this... any ideas if the axles can be removed without disassembling the parking brake/rotor?? The rear rotors on this truck are seized on and since I'm replacing axle shafts I'm hoping to just bypass that step completely and remove and replace as a complete unit. I am REALLY hoping there is enough room inside the drum to still push in the axles far enough to drop the c-clips off! fingers crossed.

 

[ShredSled]

Got my parts in!

Removed and replaced outer bearings and seals already. Wasn't that bad.
And just in case anyone besides myself was wondering, you CAN remove c-clips without removing brake rotors!!! Was incredibly stoked when I was able to do that!

But, now the project is in a short delay due to the fact I didn't realize the Motive Ten Factory axles for this truck ship without wheel studs!? Couldn't find 12 of them locally.


I will post up some photos tomorrow when I get more time. Hopefully I'll be able to get my hands on 12 wheel studs and get to wrap this up!

 

[saucemann]

Did you stay with factory diff cover after the upgrades? I have been trying to talk myself in to buying the Mag-hytec cover - greater fluid capacity.

 

[ShredSled]

Did you stay with factory diff cover after the upgrades? I have been trying to talk myself in to buying the Mag-hytec cover - greater fluid capacity.

I have a TA Performance girdle cover to help hold the bearing caps in place.
I think the Maghytec pieces are way overpriced and don't help with structural integrity either.

 

[chevdm6]

I would like to know how to do this. Im very interested to see how. It will be great to know just in case I have to do this one day.

 

[ShredSled]

Here's a few pics I took while doing this. Didn't document the whole process, mostly just things I wanted to have a record of or remember. Forgot to take pics of some key things like the slide hammer, but oh well.


First you have to drain the fluid and pop off the diff cover. I did not take photos of this because it is straight forward and simple.

Then you'll have access to the carrier.
Already pulled the ID lockring circlip and the cap cover from the carrier. This is using a magnet stick to remove the spacer that holds the axles out on a Detroit Trutrac (will look different with a g80, etc)

With that removed you can push the axles inward (yes even with rear brake rotors still on!) far enough to access the C-Clips on each axle.

After you remove C-clips (and with disc brake calipers removed, the axle shafts are completely free onslide out)
Empty carrier showing splines after axle is removed.

Quick video of that process after removing locking that holds cap in.

C-clips a little worn...

Motive Ten Factory axle shaft for 99-05 GM 1500 with 30 spline 8.5/8.6 10-bolt.

Slight differences in axle from GM OE piece.

Axleshafts did NOT come with wheel studs. Ended up purchasing 12 new GM OE studs from a dealership instead of getting dormans.

Installed studs by setting in place with a few straight whacks with a mini sledge, then seating flush with a spacer, a lug-nut, and a Milwaukee Fuel impact.

Here was the condition of my parking brakes. Beautiful.

Outer axle seal and bearing.

Through the tunnel.

What initially provoked me to do this swap and upgrade; Some wear on the axle shaft, and probably combined with wear to bearing rollers, resulted in a large amount of play when lifting the axle shaft in housing. Loud enough to clunk. Doesn't look as bad as I expected though, considering how much movement there was.

Splines don't look visibly bad to me. Must need more POWER!!!

New Timken wheel bearing, apparently manufactured by Koyo.

New Timken axle seal.

So, the outer axle bearing and seal all come out together with a couple dozen hard yanks of a slide hammer with the proper size fitting. You can remove the seal first separately if you wish but I didn't notice it helping the process.
Than you need to either use the proper size drift to hammer in the new bearing, or be VERY careful and take your time going around with something smaller to tap in the outer race evenly taking care to never hit the rollers. It will make a distinctly different sound when fully seated. Then I used a piece of wood and mallet to evenly tap in the seal flush with the housing.

 

[ShredSled]

Axle end and backing plate after some scraping, wire brush, and fresh hi-temp paint.

Random unrelated shot; those stupid little pieces in the parking brake that always seize. This was after a lot of wire brushing on the dremel and applying anti-seize.

Used a lot of lube and 80w90 to pack bearings and make it easier to insert new axles into fresh seals without damage.

And just about wrapped up with the project.

Scraped the housing surface and TA Girdle cover to a clean flush finish and put it back on using an even bead of gear oil type gasket maker (no gasket) and tightened in a crisscross sequence up to 25ftlb, tightened the girdle studs to 5ftlb and tightened lock nuts. Added 3 bottles of Valvoline conventional (seems to be best for Trutrac) 80w90. May need to add a hair more fluid later...
Got to check my lugs after a drive to make surebstuds didn't move.




Oh, and also installed a WFO Concepts u-bolt flip kit to eliminate the stupid factory rust catcher bucket they call a bracket. Looks way cleaner too.
This was after a quick shot of primer before painting black.

What the factory bracket looks like after 190k+ MI.

As you can see above, one of the u-bolts twisted off when in had a big breaker bar on it to break loose nuts. So, I just cut them off with a disc.

 

[ShredSled]

I'm now getting some odd squeaking only in lower speed right turns...?
I'm thinking it's one of the new parking brake shoes, anyone have any ideas?
Really keeping me up at night now bugging me that after I go and install all these fresh new parts and take care installing them, then I end up with a noise that wasn't there before!?

 

[carkhz316]

Looks good and nice write-up. One question; why did you choose the GM wheel studs over the Dorman?

 

[Tim W]

Looks good and nice write-up. One question; why did you choose the GM wheel studs over the Dorman?

in my experience, Dorman doesn't always fit, to mic out the splined part, they're usually smaller or completely wrong

 

[carkhz316]

Gotcha. Good to know. I was doing an axle seal in my truck a couple years ago and somehow boogered the threads on a couple studs while trying to knock a stuck rotor off. I needed it back together ASAP, so ended up using the Dorman ones from the local parts store. I didn't like that they are a different shape and slightly different length than the originals, but they fit fine and have been fine since. I'll probably try to get GM ones if I ever have to replace any again.

 

[DirtyBlackHD]

Neat write up and kudos for good parts via ten factory shafts, detroit limited slip, and wfo round u bolt setup.
I really dont care for seating studs by torquing them, though. Id much rather hammer or press them in.

 

[ShredSled]

Looks good and nice write-up. One question; why did you choose the GM wheel studs over the Dorman?

Thanks.
Very rare case you can go wrong with a factory part.
I could not source enough of what I needed from a parts store so I got them from the dealership. Paid a few bucks more, but no reason to cheap out on wheel studs carrying 35's. And this thing isn't enough of a monster for me to consider ARP for those.

Neat write up and kudos for good parts via ten factory shafts, detroit limited slip, and wfo round u bolt setup.
I really dont care for seating studs by torquing them, though. Id much rather hammer or press them in.

Thanks. I'd like to see this truck to 400,000+ if I can without losing too much interest, lol.
Needs rockers and cab corners and eventually a trans though, so those are my biggest considerations for budget on it...
Oh and yeah, I hammered in the studs until splines were through axle flange so they wouldn't twist or gall in there by spinning them in, then just seated them with the e-impact.


...just put some fresh Fox resi's on the back this weekend too. My old piggybacks were getting pretty ratty and one side had a leak from a shaft getting marred and wearing through a seal as it traveled back and forth over the nick in the finish.