1971 K10 Stepside - Getting a Roller Roadworthy

[pjmoreland]

Reassembly

[pjmoreland]

Setup

[pjmoreland]

I also reinstalled the sender with a new Jeep plastic float and a new seal.

[bobbylong]

Nice truck, I love it! I'll follow your thread as I work on my '71 step-side.

[loudchevy]

Originally Posted by pjmoreland

Someone did some crazy shimming on this axle at some point. The pinion and carrier shims were mangled. It appears that they enlarged the bearing IDs so that they'd be a slip fit.

Maybe the same someone that welded all the things on the rest of the truck

Great progress.

[pjmoreland]

Originally Posted by loudchevy

Maybe the same someone that welded all the things on the rest of the truck

Great progress.

I think you might be onto something there

[pjmoreland]

Originally Posted by bobbylong

Nice truck, I love it! I'll follow your thread as I work on my '71 step-side.

Nice! There aren't too many of these out there.

[pjmoreland]

This evening I worked on getting the pinion depth and preload set. I settled on .035" on the pinion which is only .002" less than the funky trashed shims that were in there. The drive side would have been better with a thinner shim, but the coast side would be way on the edge of the tooth that way. It feels smooth when rotated.

I installed a solid sleeve on the pinion and got the preload in spec. Took a couple of hours to get it right, but now I will be able to take it apart and put it back together in the future without worrying about messing up a crush sleeve.

I cleaned up and painted the pinion yoke, so installation will have to wait until the paint dries. This is a nice original yoke I had left over from another project. The one that was on this truck had messed up splines and was loose on the pinion. The pinion splines look perfectly fine, and this other yoke fits nice and snugly.

I wouldn't be surprised if the issues with this rear end were what doomed this truck in 2001.

[pjmoreland]

Finished setting up the rear end this evening. Got the backlash set at .008" and the carrier bearings are preloaded.

One of the axle shafts was the wrong length so a brake drum wouldn't fit (it would hit the backing plate). I replaced it with a new axle shaft that's the correct length. Installed new studs on both sides and painted the axle flanges.

Cleaned up the diff cover. It had a few small dents and the bottom edge was bent up from being hit with jacks over the years. Straightened it out a bit and then painted it black.

[pjmoreland]

More photos

[pjmoreland]

Diff cover photos