57 pinion housing removal | Ford Thunderbird forum club group 1955-2005 models

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57 pinion housing removal

  • Thread starter Thread starter cscolastico
  • Start date Start date
C

cscolastico

Bronze Member
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Thunderbird Year
1957
I'm in the process of replacing the pinion oil seal on the diff. I have drained the diff, uncoupled the drive shaft at the diff flange and removed the five bolts securing the pinion housing to the larger casting of the diff. I am having a problem removing the pinion assembly. From the manual, it seems like it should just slide out - but it is stuck. I have gently tapped it with a rubber mallet, but it did not loosen. It there anything else that needs to be disconnected? Could the gasket be so tight as to cause this? I hesitate using any more force without some assurance that all that is holding the housing on is the gasket. Any advice would be helpful.

Thanks!

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cscolastico said:
I'm in the process of replacing the pinion oil seal on the diff. I have drained the diff, uncoupled the drive shaft at the diff flange and removed the five bolts securing the pinion housing to the larger casting of the diff. I am having a problem removing the pinion assembly. From the manual, it seems like it should just slide out - but it is stuck. I have gently tapped it with a rubber mallet, but it did not loosen. It there anything else that needs to be disconnected? Could the gasket be so tight as to cause this? I hesitate using any more force without some assurance that all that is holding the housing on is the gasket. Any advice would be helpful.

Thanks!
Click to expand...
Why did you go to all that trouble when you could have removed the driveshaft and then the nut on the front of the differential holding the yoke on. Remove the yoke and then take a screw driver and remove the seal. Install a new seal and put it back together.
 
It doesn’t sound like you remove the axle shafts. You must remove them before the carrier housing can be removed. Do you have the right service manual?image.jpg
 
Dale Leonard said:
Why did you go to all that trouble when you could have removed the driveshaft and then the nut on the front of the differential holding the yoke on. Remove the yoke and then take a screw driver and remove the seal. Install a new seal and put it back together.
Click to expand...
The reaso
Dale Leonard said:
Why did you go to all that trouble when you could have removed the driveshaft and then the nut on the front of the differential holding the yoke on. Remove the yoke and then take a screw driver that I figured that as long as I was under the car I would change the gaskets and the fluid, as I don't know how long it's been in there. Appreciate your concern for my extra work, I have to do is replace the 5
Click to expand...
Dale Leonard said:
Why did you go to all that trouble when you could have removed the driveshaft and then the nut on the front of the differential holding the yoke on. Remove the yoke and then take a screw driver and remove the seal. Install a new seal and put it back together.
Click to expand...
Thanks. The reason being is that I thought that as long as I was under the vehicle I would change the gear oil and the housing gaskets, but if it will require removing the axle shafts, I'll skip the gaskets. As fare as the extra work goes, that only amounts to replacing the 5 pinion housing bolts - five minutes at most.
 
Thanks Cuul 59 - I do have the correct manual and was following the directions on page 3-33. I think I mistakenly referred to the pinion "assembly" as the pinion "housing" , sorry for the confusion. Do you still think I need to remove the axle shafts? If not, why is it so hard to remove? Just a ornery gasket? I just want to get to the oil seal and perhaps the pinion "retainer' gasket
 
Not sure though it seems so based on what I see in the drawing. If you plan to remove the gears then the axles look like they need to come out. Not all the way, just enough to disengage from the pinion assembly (based on the drawings). The exploded view in the parts illustrated might help. See attached.
 

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cscolastico said:
The reaso


Thanks. The reason being is that I thought that as long as I was under the vehicle I would change the gear oil and the housing gaskets, but if it will require removing the axle shafts, I'll skip the gaskets. As fare as the extra work goes, that only amounts to replacing the 5 pinion housing bolts - five minutes at most.
Click to expand...

Found this:
Remove the nut that holds the yoke on but mark it so that you can tighten it back to the original spot. Use rubber hammer to rap it from side to side to break it loose. If that doesn't work try this.
Copied from a post:
I smacked the hell out of the yoke with a hard rubber large hammer - - But it
wouldn't budge. Made a quicky piece of tooling to bolt to the 4 holes on the yoke with a dead centered threaded hole using 1/4" plate. Inserted a large
slide hammer to the tooling and gave it 6 good wacks. Finally came out!!
I thank all you guys for your input..

Looking at your drawings I see that you will have to remove the axles to remove the whole assembly to change the fluid and remove all the differential bolts to remove the ring and pinion. This would put the whole assembly out of the unit. Keep in mind that the front seal could have went bad from age or possibly it could be a bad pinion bearing but not likely. You can check this by feeling for slop in the bearing. You can replace the seal without removing the axles.
 
Last edited:
Thanks everyone for your input. I think I'm going to do this step by step -first remove the nut and yoke. What do you use to mark the position of the nut so that it won't wear off when removing the nut? Sharpie?
 
You can take a dial caliper and measure from the top of the threads to the base of the nut where you match mark it's position and you will be very close to where it was originally. You also should be able to take a torque wrench and torque it back to factory specs and be okay.
 
Thanks. I read somewhere in the manual that the pinion bearing must be preloaded - will tightening the nut to the original mark ( or torque to spec) be sufficient?
 
Item 4662 in your drawing is a crush washer or load washer. When you torque the pinion nut it crushes this part and preloads the pinion. I have taken the yokes off and replaced the front seal and torqued the part back to the approximate torque and been ok. It possible could move the pinion slightly but probably not enough to be concerned about. if you use a match mark and either count the turns in removing the nut or use the dial calipers to measure with you will be OK as it will put you exactly back to the same position that you removed the nut from.
 
Pursuant the the good advice here, I attempted to remove the nut holding the universal joint yoke on - but it won't budge. I used a breaker bar with a six foot pipe extension and the yoke/shaft tends to move ( about an inch) with the force but without the nut breaking loose . I have the car on jack stands so I have limited space to apply force on the breaker bar ( but I could always lift the car higher for more room). I'm afraid that if I put too much force on the breaker bar that I will damage the gears in the diff. or the pinion assembly. Is that possible? How can I remove the nut? BTW, the rear wheels are held fast by the emergency break - so no movement at the wheels.. Any help appreciated.

Thanks
 
Here's my 2 cents the subject:
In round numbers the engine can put out 330 lbs/ft and with low gear at 2,3 that would mean the parts without any safety factor need to hold 330X2.3=760 lbs/ft and you would think Ford would have designed the parts with at least a X2 factor so now you are in the range of 1500 lbs so I would think with your setup you would have a hard time breaking anything in the rear end.
I have a 56 and yesterday I had rear end out of the car and I too used a 6 ft extension and I thought I would break the socket or the breaker bar before the nut moved. I don't think I could have moved the nut with the car on jack stands with as much force as it took to break the nut loose.
 
Thanks Ron. I was thinking that there was a lot of torque on the gears, but I thought I would refer to others with more knowledge than I. Thank you for your help
 
Ron, you are right. I gritted my teeth and bore down on the six foot extension. I also used a large pipe wrench on the yoke to stop it from moving ( supported by a jack) and the nut finally moved. Thanks!
 
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