BNew

Hey guys i need some help my pinion leaked around the threads not the seal so i did some research. What i did was mark the nut counting the revolutions it took to take it off. I then put in a new pinion seal the sealed the threads with rtv silicone running the nut back on the same amount of turns then giving it an extra 1/8th of a turn. This fix worked for a while but its leaking agen, so what do i need to do now. Can i just put in a new crush sleeve resilicone the splines and torque it down or will this mess up my preload and slack ( in my opinion there's too much play now) any help is HIGHLY appreciated.

88xlt

Are you saying your yoke has up and down sideways play? If so then you need to tighten the nut more. Ideally you should get a new crush sleeve and you should certainly get a new self locking nut that goes against the yoke.

Tighten the nut JUST ENOUGH to remove all up and down sideways play, don't over tighten it.

To crush the crush sleeve you will need some hefty tools. Ideally atleast a 24 inch pipe wrench to hold the yoke and atleast a 1/2 inch breaker bar to tighten the nut and crush the sleeve.

Again don't over tighten the nut, just enough to remove the up and down sideways play.

BNew

What im saying is i believe theres too much play between the pinion and the ring gear. So if I replace the crush sleeve how do i go about that without messing up the preload or backlash. Do i just put the new crush sleeve in, fallow the torque specks or do i half to reset every thing.

88xlt

As far as I know there is no torque specs, except when the rear end is nearly completely disassembled. ie when you just have the pinion and it's bearings with no ring gear, axles etc. installed.Thus you have to tighten the pinion nut just enough so you have no up down sideways play.

When you removed and reinstalled the pinion nut did it turn easy, like almost by hand, before you got it tight enough to have normal resistance from being tight? I ask because a lot of times the(supposed to be) self-locking nut doesn't self lock and works loose If that is the case and the nut worked loose and you retightened it to it's old position it's naturally too, loose.

Assuming the pinion bearings are good, if you get a new self-locking nut and tighten it as I stated you should be good. If the old crush sleeve is still intact, you could probably reuse it, a new crush sleeve would be better, but would take more muscle using crushing.

BNew

The nut turn fairly hard all the way off and all the way back on, when i re installed it i ran it on so it was the same number of turns as it took to take off lining up the paint marks id marked everything with then going an extra 1/8th of a turn like id read to do.

88xlt

What year and what model(F-150, F250 etc) is this?

How much, if any, up down sideways play do you have?

BNew

Its a 1989 Ford F150 xlt lariat 4x4 5.0L. And there's no side to side up down play

88xlt

So your only problem is the leak? Also you believe there is too much play between the pinion and the ring gear, what makes you think that?

BNew

Correct the leak is my only problem. I feel like there's too much play because when you grab ahold of the drive shaft or yoke you can turn it back and forth id guess about 3/4 of an inch which seems like a lot compared to others i've been around.

88xlt

In would say that play is normal for a Ford. I certainly wouldn't worry about it if the rear end doesn't howl or anything else abnormal.

As far as the leak, I looked at the parts layout in my Haynes manual and I noticed they show a washer between the front bearing and the seal. Was there a washer in yours and was it in good shape? I'm thinking that washer may help to seal up the space to the splines. Other than that I don't know about the leak.