rear differential bearings

[an301]

Hello, here are few pictures of my tb:s rear differentials bearings. Car have only 128tkms in it's meter! I think differential oil has never been changed! First pictures are from inner pinion bearing race... total lack of lubrication.
Second and thirth are inner pinion bearing gear?
Last picture is from carrier bearing.
It has been a few weeks project, because I destroyed the bearing, and i must wait for new part (from rockauto) two weeks (Finnish post service is very slow, I prefer UPS or Fedex, they are much faster). Also I found this book from amazon, and ordered it, excelent book!

So, change those differential oils!!!!

 

[Mooseman]

Welcome to the Nation! That book does look good except it seems to cover early 10/12 bolt differentials (60's/70's). I guess the general info for putting the diff back together should still be good by using the actual clearances for our particular diff.

 

[an301]

Yes, you are absolutely right. It doesn't cover our 8.0" differential, but the inside of our differential is same as in earlier differentials! Only the clearances and bearing sizes are different.

 

[Mooseman]

Given the abundance of GMT360/370 here, I would have just swapped out the whole diff from a junker, especially if it's an 8.0, I would have upgraded with an 8.6. Probably not the case in Finland.

BTW, my mother-in-law is from Kemi.

 

[an301]

In here we have very few gmt360/370 cars. It is quite hard to find any parts to these cars from junkers, ther simply isn't any! Freight for whole differrential would be astronomical! (just checked price of the hood from rockauto: hood 84,01€, freight 1864,32€! you can check it youself, zipcode 00550, finland).
Kemi is nice little town north of finland, been there few times!

 

[dkvasnicka]

Welcome! What did the cover magnet look like? Did the amount of shavings hint at the state of the mechanism? What sounds did it make?

Shipping to Europe is a neverending horror story. Maybe you could find a US cars oriented shop that regularly dispatches a container from the US and can spread the shipping costs to multiple items. We have one like that here but they're not that cheap either... Simply because the market doesn't force them to be

 

[an301]

Hello, cover magnet didn't indicated anything. There were only minor amount of shavings on the magnet. Sound was strange: It startet at speed above 40kmh, stayed almost same at all speeds, didn't get much louder. Oil was very bad. It looked like swamp mud.

Here we have couple US car only part shops. They have quite professional and very helpful personel. They of course can't store all parts to all american cars, because they store parts for Fords, Gm's and mopars. If I order some parts at them, I must wait at least a month, because parts comes with ship freight. Air freight is much faster. (also much more expensive!) Best parts to order from States are: very light and small...