1995 Suburban Family Battlewagon

[Catbox]

Here we go again with the rear end spitting its guts out.
This will be the 3rd failure with the first two being extreme budget rebuilds and the last a full boogie Eaton Detroit True Track.

On Friday night I was in a parking lot turning to get into a lane for a space.
As I was turning, I felt the drivers side bind up and pop a couple of times.
Then nothing.

Seeing as I have done this boogie before, I stopped and checked stuff over.
Nothing looked out of the normal.
All joints are tight and no leaks present under the back end, which is pretty spiffy for a 225,000 mile daily driver.

So yesterday @Maxwellvis and I pulled the diff cover to see what we could see.
After the oil oozed out of it all the teeth on the ring and pinion looked ok to me.
So I stuck my finger in there and felt around.
I found many small pieces of metal, not slivers, chunks.

I have called the new rear end guy that was recommended to me and we will be going with a Yukon Dura Grip this time.

We will be pulling the whole rear end out of the Sub to verify it is totally straight and good to use.
I don't want to be doing this again any time soon....

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[Catbox]

Here is the only photo I took of the gear set, they seem to be in good health still.
Hopefully that is the case when the guy gets them in his hands.

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[Catbox]

Whelp.
Max named the sub yesterday.
We now call it Lt. Dan as it "Don't got no legs"

The boy pulled the rear out from under it in short order, I have trained him up well.

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Damn those U bolts are crap.
We will be picking up a new set of those for sure.

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This is a view of my current drive way.
Not one of those rear ends are the same.
There is a complete Ford 8.8 in the back yard as well...

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Dropped the Sub legs off at the doctors house last night...

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[Catbox]

This is what is left of my Detroit True Track differential.
It was installed right about 5 years ago.

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I am not sure of why it let go, but you felt it when it would break a piece off.
This is the offending gear that broke.
Only one let go and that is all it took.

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We will be replacing it with a Yukon Duragrip center, a master bearing kit, 1 new axle, and some seals.
Then it should be good to go once again.

He also checked the axle tubes for straightness as I suspected that might have been a cause of the failure.
The driver side rear tire and wheel came off at about 30mph one day a few years ago.
That tube was in fact bent somewhat up, not terribly out of whack.
The other side was slightly out too.
He has a pretty nifty jig set up that uses a bottle jack to apply pressure to the assembly to make it square again.

 

[Catbox]

"You don't got no legs Lt. Dan..."

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[Catbox]

The refreshed rear is all done once again!
To the tune of $1148 this time.
Now to get over and pick it up so the reinstallation fun can begin.

@Maxwellvis has it in his head that he wants to install a set of 3/4 ton rear leaf springs under it.
The reasoning being it will give the rear a modest 1.5 to 2 inch lift.
Then we can turn the front torsion bars up to match in the front.

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[Raider L]

@Catbox,

Well wait a minute! The pics are just showing a couple of small places on the worm gears chipped, where did all those other big pieces come from?? Any roller bearings busted? And did you look at the bearings out on the end of the axle tubes? I can't imagine those bearings breaking but you never know. And the roller bearings at the pinion gear was okay?

 

[Catbox]

@Catbox,

Well wait a minute! The pics are just showing a couple of small places on the worm gears chipped, where did all those other big pieces come from?? Any roller bearings busted? And did you look at the bearings out on the end of the axle tubes? I can't imagine those bearings breaking but you never know. And the roller bearings at the pinion gear was okay?

Yuppers.
The only damage was from the gear destruction.
All the bearings were removed and were in good serviceable condition, but I had them all changed anyway.

I still have the unit outside.
I can measure the gear damage later after work.
That one missing section is like the width of a thumb nails worth of missing metal.

 

[78C10BigTen]

The refreshed rear is all done once again!
To the tune of $1148 this time.
Now to get over and pick it up so the reinstallation fun can begin.

@Maxwellvis has it in his head that he wants to install a set of 3/4 ton rear leaf springs under it.
The reasoning being it will give the rear a modest 1.5 to 2 inch lift.
Then we can turn the front torsion bars up to match in the front.

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I like @Maxwellvis 's idea! Those burbs always had saggy ass syndrome. My 94 i put an add a leaf and a 3" block in the back, torsion turned up front and 33x12.5x15 dunlop mud rovers.

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[Catbox]

On Monday the new to us set of 3/4 ton Suburban springs came home.

The corporate douches of the Pick N Pull company had some issues with people in other yards doing shady **** on the full size trucks and getting themselves hurt.
So now all the full size trucks and such are only set on one flat wheel instead of the stacked two wheels.
It really makes taking things off of bottom of the trucks difficult.

@Maxwellvis fixed that by cutting through the floor of the sub with a sawzall.
Take that bastards!

But in the photo you can see the bottom spring is like twice as thick as the stock one on the Sub now...
We had to get some new u-bolts as the stock ones were ****.
Max's work only had one in stock, but luckily just a few miles down the road there is a custom spring maker.
They whipped up a set of new custom u-bolts while he waited for a mere $53 out the door.
Cool stuff and not bad at $99 total for both springs.

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[Curt]

I know you have a plan,but maybe a beefier rearend should be considered if the Yukon fails.I know there was 6 lug 14 bolts (semi float) through the 90s in some 1/2 ton trucks.I know for sure that the SS 454 pickup had it.Just saying.

 

[78C10BigTen]

I know you have a plan,but maybe a beefier rearend should be considered if the Yukon fails.I know there was 6 lug 14 bolts (semi float) through the 90s in some 1/2 ton trucks.I know for sure that the SS 454 pickup had it.Just saying.

I forgot untill you said that! I put one in my 94 burb also (due to breaking teeth off the pinion gear in the stock rear). Hard to see in this pic. Side note: this pic i was fixin broken leaves!

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[Curt]

I forgot untill you said that! I put one in my 94 burb also (due to breaking teeth off the pinion gear in the stock rear). Hard to see in this pic. Side note: this pic i was fixin broken leaves!

That’s a good swap.Most people look past it,but it’s way stronger than little brother

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[Catbox]

I know you have a plan,but maybe a beefier rearend should be considered if the Yukon fails.I know there was 6 lug 14 bolts (semi float) through the 90s in some 1/2 ton trucks.I know for sure that the SS 454 pickup had it.Just saying.

If this rearend sh¡ts the bed another time, I will be putting a beefier rear in it for sure.
Max brought this up to me before I had the one rebuilt, but I would still have to have that rebuilt anyway.
So we will be rolling on the 8.5 again.

 

[Catbox]

So on Saturday I went out while Max was at work and got started on some frivolous stuff.
I wanted my new to me parts to look the part.
So we picked up some of the finest $1.38 a can black paint that the Home Cheapo had.
$7.00 bucks for 5 cans instead of $7 for one can.

Man these springs are heavy and getting them onto the sawhorses was a wrestling match.

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But, I did it and went to town on them with a drill and wire wheel to knock the crap off them.
Then a quick spray of brake cleaner and a wipe off.
After a few coats of paint, they don't look all that bad.
I even got the boy to do some of the painting and modeling...

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Here you can see the difference between the 1/2 ton and 3/4 ton springs.
Mucho Beefier!

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