It was almost pure luck that we caught the disintegration in this rear axle before the internals suffered irreparable damage. An odd chunk of metal was found at the bottom of the differential housing during a routine fluid change and we knew it was time to dig deeper into the axle. This Dodge 1500 4WD uses the Chrysler 9.25 rear axle equipped with a Dana Trac-Lok clutch-type limited slip differential. The action of this particular unit had grown gradually weaker over the years and eventually the cupped spring plates started to fatigue and fracture. We found some spring-plate debris lurking in the oil. Fortunately, the metal shard had fallen harmlessly to the bottom of the housing and not traveled its way across the gear surfaces or been crunched up in some other rotating portion of the assembly. If you catch one in this condition, you can do the internal rebuild job we describe here for about $100 in parts and fluids. However, if the metal pieces have resulted in internal carnage, it may be necessary to replace most or all of the differential components. In the latter case, many more dollars will fly out of your wallet for the repair. 1. We started the rebuild by placing the rear axle on jackstands and pulling both wheels. Next, the rear differential cover was loosened and pried outward to drain the gear oil. Then, the cover was fully removed.1. We started the rebuild by placing the rear axle on jackstands and pulling both wheels. 2. The Dodge 9.25-inch version axle uses C-clip style shafts, so we began the disassembly by removing the small bolt that secures the carrier cross pin.2. The Dodge 9.25-inch version axle uses C-clip style shafts, so we began the disassembly 3. Once the bolt is removed, the cross pin can be tapped out of one side of the carrier. It is usually necessary to rotate the carrier to do this.3. Once the bolt is removed, the cross pin can be tapped out of one side of the carrier. I 4. With the steel center pin removed, each axle shaft can be pushed inward just a bit so that the c-clip can be pulled off the end of the shaft. This leaves the axles free to be pulled out of the carrier splines.4. With the steel center pin removed, each axle shaft can be pushed inward just a bit so t 5. It's better to pull the shaft completely out of the axle rather than have them rest on the outboard seals and risk damaging them. In our case, we figured it wise to go ahead and replace the oil seals for a few bucks while we had the axle apart. We simply pried the old ones out and tapped in new ones.5. It's better to pull the shaft completely out of the axle rather than have them rest on 6. We began the carrier disassembly by removing the adjuster nut keepers and their securing bolts. These are the small stamped steel pieces that are bolted to the top of each of the carrier bearing caps.6. We began the carrier disassembly by removing the adjuster nut keepers and their securin 7. We loosened the carrier bearing cap bolts slightly, working in a cross pattern. Then we removed the bolts completely and pulled the bearing caps off of the housing. The 9.25-inch carrier uses large threaded adjuster nuts inside the axle housing to set the carrier bearing preload and to move the carrier side-to-side to set the gear backlash.7. We loosened the carrier bearing cap bolts slightly, working in a cross pattern. Then we 8. To remove the carrier from the axle housing requires that the adjuster nuts be loosened. This requires a special tool on a long shaft that is inserted into the axle tube from the end of the axle housing.8. To remove the carrier from the axle housing requires that the adjuster nuts be loosened 9. Here you can see the end of our homemade tool we used to loosen the adjuster nuts. You can purchase a tool for just this purpose from a number of aftermarket tool suppliers. We didn't have the opportunity to pick up the needed tool in advance, so we made our own by trial and error. We welded a couple of large, thick washers onto the end of a piece of steel tube, and then ground the washers to a hex pattern until it fit our adjuster nuts. The final hex was about 1-7/16 inches across the flats.9. Here you can see the end of our homemade tool we used to loosen the adjuster nuts. You 10. With the carrier removed from the housing, you can see the adjuster nut shown here (ring with the holes drilled around the perimeter). In this photo, the hex tool end can be seen inserted into the female hex pattern in the adjuster nut. We were careful to note how much we backed off each of the nuts to loosen the carrier for removal. Doing so allowed us to easily restore the same bearing preload and backlash conditions.10. With the carrier removed from the housing, you can see the adjuster nut shown here (ri 11. The ring gear location was marked (to reassemble in same location) on the removed carrier and the ring gear bolts removed. Again, these bolts were loosened slightly in an alternating pattern before they were removed completely to minimize chances of warping the carrier. With the bolts removed, the ring gear was knocked off the carrier using a soft-face hammer.11. The ring gear location was marked (to reassemble in same location) on the removed carr 12. Here's the carrier with the ring gear removed. The clutch packs are under spring tension, leaving the side gears and spider gears tightly assembled. We used a couple of 3/4-inch bolts (one 4 inches long, one 4 1/2 inches long), some washers and a couple of nuts to tighten down the clutch pack springs and remove some tension off the spider gears. A special tool is available to help with this process, but we found this cheaper method worked well for our purposes.12. Here's the carrier with the ring gear removed. The clutch packs are under spring tensi 1 | 2 | » | View Full Article By Jay Kopycinski Enjoyed this Post? Subscribe to our RSS Feed, or use your favorite social media to recommend us to friends and colleagues!
Jnichols1213 4/12/2013 at 1:42 PM How long does the special tool in figure 9 need to be with the 1 7/16 " flats
