Bye-bye Gov-Lock, Hello Tru Trac, plus gear swap and brakes

[n8in8or]

Ok. I reviewed my pictures over and over. I looked online of examples of good patterns and then decided that I liked .023 the best. So I took everything apart and set it up for the last time. I knocked the old outer races out of the housing and installed new races. I pressed the new inner bearing on the pinion. I cleaned everything up really well and installed new crush sleeve, outer pinion bearing and pinion seal. I installed a new pinion nut with thread locker and put thread locker on the carrier bolts, too.



I ended up with 18 in-lbs of pinion preload which is right in the middle of the 15-22 spec for new bearings. Problem is that now I don’t like my pattern. It looks like too much pinion shim to me. So that’s frustrating. So I guess I take apart again and install different pinion shims and try again.

 

[n8in8or]

I think I’ve got it finally. .007” backlash with a .021” pinion shim stack. I added .002” to the carrier shims at the same time I swapped the pinion shims since I didn’t want to increase the backlash - which moving the pinion away from the ring gear would have done.....that’s why the backlash went down and not up from the last setup.



Tomorrow I’ll finish buttoning everything up and finally drive it! Today I’m heading in to watch the Kentucky Derby and have a couple hard-earned mint juleps

 

[n8in8or]

Cheers!!!

 

[Jaryd]

i like the straw you got there. Left over brake line?

 

[n8in8or]

i like the straw you got there. Left over brake line?

Ha! My girlfriend bought a set of stainless straws off of Amazon. I told her I could have made some.....

 

[79jasper]

Man, I'm gonna make a etsy account and get rich quick. Lol

Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

 

[THEFERMANATOR]

Just now seeing this, but I was gonna say the .021. You forgot you were using a used pinion bearing as a setup bearing. So that moved your pinion back a good .001-.002 by going with a new bearing. I always liked to run my pinion on the snugger side with a crush sleeve. And make sure you get your carrier bearings preloaded sufficiently. A common mistake many make is not getting enough preload on them, under load the housing will push apart some, and the carrier will cock over some when the housing spreads if it's not loaded enough. People would FREAK OUT if they seen what it took to get the carrier back into a DANA 80. Took a case spreader, a helper, and a mallet still yet to get them in.

 

[n8in8or]

Just now seeing this, but I was gonna say the .021. You forgot you were using a used pinion bearing as a setup bearing. So that moved your pinion back a good .001-.002 by going with a new bearing. I always liked to run my pinion on the snugger side with a crush sleeve. And make sure you get your carrier bearings preloaded sufficiently. A common mistake many make is not getting enough preload on them, under load the housing will push apart some, and the carrier will cock over some when the housing spreads if it's not loaded enough. People would FREAK OUT if they seen what it took to get the carrier back into a DANA 80. Took a case spreader, a helper, and a mallet still yet to get them in.

Thanks Ferm. Yeah I figured the difference was between the old bearings and new bearings. I got the adjuster as tight as I could get it. I’ve read that you set it by tightening it 3 holes past when it just touches the bearing race. That’s about what I have. How much do you tighten them usually?

 

[n8in8or]

I’ve driven about 5 miles and so far no gear noise!

Unfortunately the brakes are WEAK. I adjusted the rear brakes again and that helped, but still wasn’t all of it. The fronts wouldn’t hold the truck under light powerbraking. I opened the bleeders and let it flow - no air bubbles came out so that doesn’t seem to be the problem. I’m researching master cylinder and wheel cylinder sizes for different trucks. I’m thinking that the oversize wheel cylinders may be too much for the master cylinder. I don’t know if the caliper pistons are larger or not either. Researching now....

 

[THEFERMANATOR]

I’ve driven about 5 miles and so far no gear noise!

Unfortunately the brakes are WEAK. I adjusted the rear brakes again and that helped, but still wasn’t all of it. The fronts wouldn’t hold the truck under light powerbraking. I opened the bleeders and let it flow - no air bubbles came out so that doesn’t seem to be the problem. I’m researching master cylinder and wheel cylinder sizes for different trucks. I’m thinking that the oversize wheel cylinders may be too much for the master cylinder. I don’t know if the caliper pistons are larger or not either. Researching now....

As far as I know, all hydro boost trucks got the same master cylinder. You can swap in the P30 master for a 1/16" larger piston. But the smaller piston actually makes more pressure, just takes more pedal movement to achieve it. Either you got air in the abs unit, or your pads are not good. I know I spent $80 1 time for a set of Akebono pads for my Burb because they are supposedly the best there is. I couldn't stop for NOTHING! I could mash the pedal almost to the floor, and still couldn't begin to hold it. Swapped in the Raybestos advanced technology metalics, and WOWZA the difference. And truck with a 10 bolt stock already had the proportioning valve that gave good rear brakes. The only 1 better came in c3500hd's with 4 wheel disc's and the police Tahoe's.

 

[n8in8or]

As far as I know, all hydro boost trucks got the same master cylinder. You can swap in the P30 master for a 1/16" larger piston. But the smaller piston actually makes more pressure, just takes more pedal movement to achieve it. Either you got air in the abs unit, or your pads are not good. I know I spent $80 1 time for a set of Akebono pads for my Burb because they are supposedly the best there is. I couldn't stop for NOTHING! I could mash the pedal almost to the floor, and still couldn't begin to hold it. Swapped in the Raybestos advanced technology metalics, and WOWZA the difference. And truck with a 10 bolt stock already had the proportioning valve that gave good rear brakes. The only 1 better came in c3500hd's with 4 wheel disc's and the police Tahoe's.

Here’s what I did:

I remembered accidentally running the reservoir low when bleeding the rear brakes. At the time I just started over and bled the rear all over again. I thought maybe I got some air in the master cylinder so I took that off and bench bled it. That didn’t work.

So then I put the old 1” wheel cylinders on. That helped, and the truck stops, but the pedal still doesn’t feel nice. Yes, I could have air in the abs now, or could the larger pistons in the calipers make that much of a difference?

I looked up master cylinders and it looks like there are a couple different master cylinders for different applications, even though they’re all 1-1/4” in diameter. Think there’s anything to that?



I suppose I should have my abs bled first and see what that does before throwing parts at it. I have Car Code, I’ll have to see if that has abs bleeding capability so I could do it myself.

 

[n8in8or]

Good news is that the gears are quiet!! Gosh that’s nice.

 

[EWC]

FERM , what did you look for in preload ? I've got a Dana 60 and 8.5 that I'm doing and the book wants zero clearance , with the correct backlash , and then add .004 shims per side on the 8.5 . . On a 9" Ford you can see the spread , with a dial indicator , as you tighten adjusters . I usually rotate the R&P until the readings seat and then put some preload in .

 

[THEFERMANATOR]

FERM , what did you look for in preload ? I've got a Dana 60 and 8.5 that I'm doing and the book wants zero clearance , with the correct backlash , and then add .004 shims per side on the 8.5 . . On a 9" Ford you can see the spread , with a dial indicator , as you tighten adjusters . I usually rotate the R&P until the readings seat and then put some preload in .

It depended on the axle, but .008-.010 sounds about right. I know Dana wanted them tight enough you needed a cade spreader to get the carrier back in. I did most of them by feel, but we found the factory preload specs from Dana seemed a bit tight. I set most up so I could just get the carrier in with some careful mallet work.

 

[EWC]

Thanks

 

[n8in8or]

Update: my brother works at a shop so I asked him if they could bleed my ABS module. He said they don't normally have to do that if they use a certain technique for bleeding. I was intrigued....... So he came over Monday night and helped me with the brake bleeding. What he did was open up the bleeders one at a time in the normal sequence, but instead of opening and closing the bleeder each time the pedal was pressed/depressed, he just held his finger over the bleeder. The reason for this was to move the fluid through faster - I just pumped the pedal up-and-down at a regular cadence and the more-steady movement of the fluid through the system is supposed grab more air with it. He did see some air come out while doing that. Then once that was done, we went back and did a normal bleed for each line. This helped the pedal feel, but it still wasn't perfect. That's when I showed him a video I found:

Now, they claim to be bleeding the ABS, but in reality they're just bleeding the proportioning valve. Still, we gave it a shot. We got even more air out by doing that. Then we bled all of the lines again....more air still. Those internet wizards sure are smart

My brakes are much better now, though I think there may be a little air in there still. It doesn't feel like it did before the brake upgrade and I don't think it's just because of the larger caliper pistons. My suspicion is that the ABS module had a bunch of air in it....and I don't think just from me accidentally running the reservoir dry. When I bought the truck, I noticed that the ABS module was a replacement from a junkyard since it had paint pen writing on it. My hypothesis is that I probably had a little air in there all along because when they swapped it, they didn't use a scan tool to bleed it properly......at least that's my guess.

My brother has a friend that bought the old scan tool from the shop he works at. He's going to check if it will do an ABS bleed. Yes, I could just have his shop do it, but he's trying to save me the charge. If all else fails, I may just get a new scan tool that will do an ABS bleed. When I was youtubing I found a video review of a homeowner grade scan tool that will actually do an ABS module bleed:

I actually found it for $145 on Ebay, so it's really not a bad price. If I sold my current OTC scan tool I could hopefully recoup about half of that.

So that's my update for now. This weekend we're going to take a semi-local road trip so I can start racking up miles on the gears. Hopefully by next week I can be up in the 3-500 mile range so I can change the gear oil and stop babying the gears.

 

[n8in8or]

FYI, there is an even cheaper tool that is supposed to be able to bleed ABS: Foxwell NT630. It's only $109 on Ebay. I'm looking at both of these to see if they're worth buying.

 

[THEFERMANATOR]

If you have a 96+ I found a PC based setup you can use from amazon. It's called the GM nano I believe. It does pretty much everything a GM tech 2 does, but can only work on the 96+ obd2 because of how the adapter is built. I'm looking at getting one of the cko tech 2's for mine. 95 was an off year with GM for abs. I know I tried a tech 1, and couldn't connect because the latest mass storage card only covered up to 94. I found out 95 requires a seperate adapter or supposedly the tech 2 can do it. The reviews are mostly positive, and you can get one for around $300 shipped, and a candi module to do 06-13 for another $60 or so.

 

[n8in8or]

If you have a 96+ I found a PC based setup you can use from amazon. It's called the GM nano I believe. It does pretty much everything a GM tech 2 does, but can only work on the 96+ obd2 because of how the adapter is built. I'm looking at getting one of the cko tech 2's for mine. 95 was an off year with GM for abs. I know I tried a tech 1, and couldn't connect because the latest mass storage card only covered up to 94. I found out 95 requires a seperate adapter or supposedly the tech 2 can do it. The reviews are mostly positive, and you can get one for around $300 shipped, and a candi module to do 06-13 for another $60 or so.

I did a search on Amazon, but the only thing I could find was poorly rated. If you have a link I would appreciate that.

I just read some more and the Foxwell tool sounds flaky overall and I found a review on the Autel Maxicheck Pro that said it wouldn't connect to the ABS on a 97 GM.....so that's probably not going to work for me either unfortunately.

 

[n8in8or]

I started thinking about bleeding the ABS more. I reasoned that it really shouldn't be that complicated. If one knew how the electrical worked, then couldn't you just apply voltage to the right terminals and make the module do it's thing? Of course, that's a simplified perspective, but the basic idea. So I started searching "Kelsey Hayes ABS", rather than trying to search for truck-specific info. JACKPOT. This document should be super helpful. I am going to print this off and try some of the stuff it talks about. Seems pretty straight forward. I might make a pigtail to plug into the OBD2 port that I can just jumper wires on rather than sticking a jumper in the plug itself - just to make it a little easier.

https://www.motor.com/magazinepdfs/061998_01.pdf

I looked up the special Kent Moore tool that it references in the article. Not cheap, but I have only started looking.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000K1FVLW/?tag=jhdiesel-20