Trying to remove yoke on front axle so I can replace a leaking seal. Anybody know if the nut holding the yoke to the pinion gear is regular of left-hand threads?
As far as I know, all pinion nuts are right hand thread. It is on a spline, so left or right rotation of the drive shaft has no affect on the nut. If you can see the threads, right hand slopes outward from left to right, vise versa. Unless you have a good impact gun, the nut can be hard to break free sometimes.
Yes, it's been a booger! So in a way I was hoping it was left hand since I have had no luck.
Can you heat it? You're changing the seal anyway
Yes, I can try that.
Try to just heat the nut if you can, there are many that say not to get the pinion itself too hot because you can change it's temper.
If they use a crush sleeve like cars and pickups do on their pinions, that nut has some serious torque on it from the factory. I would mark the position of the nut in relation to the pinion shaft, so when you go to put it back you can get it back to the same spot that it's in now. Just to keep your pinion bearing preload in the ballpark.
Some pickups are over 250lbs torque. My father had a yolk holder with a 3 foot handle on it so the gun would get that snap without the pinion moving.
I tried a little yesterday, but figured I would definitely get it this morning. I put a 3/4" pull handle on the socket, eased ahead slowly in my truck pulling the backhoe until the handle rested against the frame. Then, surprising to me, the front tires slid instead of twisting the pinion. It is on concrete and I'm sure dirt particles made it easier to slide, but still....
Per SIS the yoke is installed by: Tighten the 130-3005 Nut to the following torque. ... 450 N·m (331.9 lb ft) And the bearing pre-load is set by selective fitting shim washers, actually looks like everything in this axle has a large assortment of shims and or spacers to adjust things.
So far the pinion nut is up 2 to my zero. Maybe tomorrow. Fingers crossed