Future Daily Driver

[rodneyb94]

Howdy folks,

I picked up a 1960 C10 a while ago with the intent of making it a daily driver. But, as with most things in life, it always takes longer than you expect.

Here is a partial list of things I have been able to tackle so far:

Disc brakes on the front
Power brake booster
Separate clutch master cylinder
All new brake lines
Rebuild the rear drum brakes
Rebuild the parking brake
Complete front suspension rebuild
Rebuilt the steering box, new rag joint
Remove the rear air bags and replace them with 3" drop springs
I am sure there is more, but that is all I can remember at the moment.

Next step was to address the leak in the differential. I pulled the rear cover and ran into the next issue. As you can see from the pics below, someone took a grinder to the diff carrier for some reason I cannot explain. Has anyone ever seen this type of "custom" modification?



After doing a little research, I am pretty sure this is an Eaton HO32 or the GM 55T. It has the 3.90 gear ratio in it.

From my understanding, I could pull this rear end and replace it with one from a 63-66 C10 with minimal modification. But, my goal would be to get this one back into working order.

Any thoughts/ideas/comments/questions on how to proceed?

Thanks in advance for the help,
Rodney

[SkinnyG]

The grinding is from the pinion bearings going south, and the pinion skooching past the ring gear and driving itself right into the carrier.

If it's not noisy, you can keep running it.

[rodneyb94]

Hi Skinny!

Thanks for the note. It is not making any noise that I can decipher, but in all honesty I have not driven more than about 2 miles in the neighborhood.

Sounds like it is need of a gold old fashioned rebuild.

I see there is a thread 60Short has put together about rebuilding this type of diff. Sounds like I will be dropping a rear diff in the near future.

Thanks,
Rodney

[cwcarpenter98]

If it was fixed properly, and to me, it looks like the ring and pinion might have been replaced after the contact happened, you will probably be fine. I'd be tempted to put some fresh fluid in and drive it around to see if any bad noise is coming from the rear end. If no bad noise, you're good to go. If you feel more comfortable by having it gone through now rather than later, by all means, do that.

Let's see some more pictures of the truck too, please!

[rodneyb94]

Thank for the thoughts.

I agree that it looks like the Ring and Pinion have been replaced. I am not sure about the other parts, mainly all of the bearings, not just the pinion bearings.

I jacked up one rear tire and as I moved the tire back and forth, there was quite a bit of movement before the ring and pinion would contact one another. But, before I can say for sure there is too much backlash, I need to measure it. If the backlash is within spec, I will measure the wear pattern. If the wear pattern looks OK, then i will probably follow you advice and see how it drives.

Here are a few pics I have of it.....

[SkinnyG]

I like it.