Re: Rear Pinion Crush Spacer

Posted by Peter Packard On 2015/9/29 3:06:17

Do not remove the axles.....I have performed the re-adjustment procedure many times and it is very straightforward. Many of us have replaced a pinion seal on a Packard with the crush sleeve and it is not rocket science. You must however be confident in your own ability not to completely screw it up. So...don't put a rattle gun with 500 ft lbs available onto the pinion nut. You are dealing with a bearing set-up very similar to your front wheel bearings, for which you would tighten the wheel nut until the bearings (aka non-binding brake drum) shows some resistance then back off one castellation on the lock nut before you put the split pin in.
Essentially... You would only use a new sleeve if you have replaced the bearings, etc and were going to conduct a full overhaul.
The Packard manuals are of course very concise but predicated on the mantra that a qualified mechanic is reading them. Enter most of us on info.com with minimal mechanical qualifications but a huge reservoir of enthusiasm.
Essentially, when you put your rear axle pinion nut on and you have not recorded the emergent distance of the pinion flange from the nut. You should manually tighten the pinion nut until you have no fore and aft sliding motion in the pinion. You will feel this as you will physically be unable to push the pinion in and out of the ring gear. when you can no longer move it in and out you are in the critical adjustment area. The pinion nut tightening really is about 40 foot lbs and is a separate issue to the pinion mesh torque and you must check pinion mesh torque at each quarter tighten of the pinion nut. You should be able to discern when you meet the crush washer as the Torque wrench readings to drive the non brake dragging, off the ground axles, not tightening the pinion nut, will suddenly tighten up to around 30 inch pounds ( get an inch pound torque wrench...not very expensive but the adaptors can load up a bit).
Similar to wheel bearings, you want an extremely light preload and it is attainable if you can control the urge to tighen the heck out of things. Once again, the tightening of the pinion nut is a different operation to the measuring of the pinion mesh torque.

Other people may have better advice on this process, but it works for me.
Good luck and kudos to you for doing it yourself. PT