• NAXJA is having its 18th annual March Membership Drive!!!
    Everyone who joins or renews during March will be entered into a drawing!
    More Information - Join/Renew
  • Welcome to the new NAXJA Forum! If your password does not work, please use "Forgot your password?" link on the log-in page. Please feel free to reach out to [email protected] if we can provide any assistance.

Ford 8.8/general diff question.

Borgli

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Hagerman
A friend just gave me the 8.8 out of his old explorer and I want to have it sandblasted because it's pretty rusty.

I assume the sand is going to get in it no matter what so I'm going to have to dissaselble it completely.

I've never worked on diffs except change fluids to my question is;
Can I take it all apart and just put it all back or will shims and whatnot have to be replaced?

Thanks!
 
If it were me, I would not take it apart to sandblast it.
To reassemble the differential requires specialized knowledge and tools.
A couple of hours with scrappers and a wire wheel mounted in a drill motor, will clean things up. An angle grinder, with a wire wheel, would also be handy.
 
Per the direction of the guy doing the sand blasting, I removed the axle shafts and shoved old t-shirts/rags down in the axle tubes and wrapped one around the yoke at the pinion seal area. This was then covered real well with multiple layers of duct tape. I completely wrapped the tubes outboard of the caliper bracket mounting flange and up onto the pumpkin a 1/4" or so at the pinion. I left the ABS sensor in place and put a bolt in the vent hole. On the D30, I just wrapped the vent hose fitting real good with multiple layers of duct tape. The silver kind, so they can see it... As long as the they don't go hog wild, the duct tape will take more abuse from the sand blaster than I thought originally. Cut off the tape, clean up the areas that were covered, wash it down (air won't get all the dust off) and then pull the rags out of the axles tubes.

To answer your original question, the differential can be fully disassembled without replacing parts. Before removing the yoke from the pinion, put a mark on the pinion and on the nut so that you can line them back up when reassembling it. Other than that, just make sure that everything goes back in the order and location that it came out of and you're good to go. The guy doing the sand blasting said that even if I was replacing the ring and pinion, his suggestion was to leave at least the pinion gear in and plug the tubes. Easier than trying to get all of the sand out from inside the housing...

I will caveat all this by saying the guy I go to for sand blasting is just a farmer who does it in one of his out buildings. It's his name on the business card and he's been doing it for years. It's not somebody off the street making minimum wage... I suggest working with the place doing the work, ideally the actual person doing the work, to figure out the best way.
 
I second what LazyXJ said - just hit it with a wire wheel to get all the loose rust off , and then use some Por15 if you want to be fancy and/or Rust-Oleum. If it is not going to be a show rig, there is no reason to go through the trouble of sandblasting it.
 
If it were me, I would not take it apart to sandblast it.
To reassemble the differential requires specialized knowledge and tools.
A couple of hours with scrappers and a wire wheel mounted in a drill motor, will clean things up. An angle grinder, with a wire wheel, would also be handy.

When I cleaned mine up I used an angle grinder and a flap disc.
 
LA, Houston, exactly how much rust do the axles have ?

When I take an axle to the industrial sandblaster, I do similar to what is suggested. Either leave everything on it, or remove the shafts and backing plates, and block off the tubes with some 1/4" steel plate using a gasket. Further disassembly is not required. Wrap the pinion well with rags and duct tape, and plug any vent holes with a bolt.

.
medium800.jpg

.
medium800.jpg
 
Something to think about when removing and replacing the pinion nut at the risk of coming across as nagging :lecture:

The torque on the pinion nut is achieved as the crush sleeve crushes. When you R&R the pinion nut it is very difficult to achieve the original torque on the pinion nut without inadvertently crushing the crush sleeve more, which preloads the pinion bearings and causes problems you don't want. You can also not get the pinon nut tight enough which will cause it to come loose over time and then really bad things happen.


I know that people have been successful at replacing the seal by removing and replacing the pinion nut but it is not the preferred way and it does carry risk. I don't want someone to get hurt if the pinion nut comes loose and the diff locks up or the driveshaft goes flying, or have their pinion bearings cook because of too much preload. I know of someone that caused an accident and a death after they had replaced the pinion seal by R&Ring the pinion nut - the pinion nut eventually fell off at highway speed and the diff locked up and caused an accident.



If you are going ahead with removing and replacing the pinion nut anyway then at least use a new pinion nut and use threadlocker on it. Some pinion nuts have sealer on them and you'd want a new one to prevent leaks - I know that when I had a ford with an 8.8 the pinion nut had sealer on it.

The proper way to replace the pinion seal involves using a new pinion nut and a new crush sleeve and dissembling the diff to replace the old crush sleeve.
 
Thanks for the feedback.
I'll just invest in an air angle die grinder and go to town on it.
Might not turn out perfect, but at least I don't have to worry a out messing up a nice low milage axle.
 
Back
Top