Spherical thrust washer

[mpigott]

I have a 76 c10 with a G80 differential. Went to pull axels and a thrust washer fell out from one of the spider gears. It was in bad shape, looked like a half eaten cookie. Anyway, I bought a new one and the step flange is to the inside, as opposed to the original one, which has the step to the outside. See pic.
My question is does it matter which way the step faces?
Thanks

 

[83K31003]

Yes it does - that washer must “spoon” the outer part of the spider pinion gear. In other words it needs to “match the curve” and the raised lip will find center retention from the radius bore in the pinion gear.

Unfortunately sometimes replacement parts are superseded as time goes by and possibly requiring other related parts to be replaced as well - if the raised section won’t work with existing gears you may need to look into any footnote on other components that go along with the new style washers.

Something to consider - that washer has taken a beating to break like that. It would be wise to R&R the complete differential to find out why this happened.

 

[mpigott]

Thanks for the reply. Was afraid of that. I agree, there is a lot of missing metal in there and likely something else needs attention.

 

[TotalyHucked]

G80s are called "Gov-bombs" for a reason lol. Every time I've been in a rear axle for major work, it gets trashed and upgraded

 

[mpigott]

I’ll tear it down and see what’s what. 50 years of service. I’m not mad about that! Hahaha
Thanks for the reply’s!