2004 differential rebuild tech question

stoney500

New member
I have an 2004 Freightliner Sprinter that the rear end bearings started to whine and decided to rebuild it myself due to financial reasons. My question is when I pulled the diff apart there didn't seem to be a spacer between the rear pinion bearing and the crush sleeve (collapsible spacer). Is this normal? I want to assemble but this boggles me. mfg date is 03\04 so its the later diff I guess since they changed in 02/04. Is this right? Any help from somebody who knows would be appreciated. note: The crush sleeve that came in the kit is identical except about 1\8" longer but it hasn't been crushed yet. All bearings are the same so it appears I got the right kit but no pinion spacer is available. Thanks
 

lindenengineering

Well-known member
I have an 2004 Freightliner Sprinter that the rear end bearings started to whine and decided to rebuild it myself due to financial reasons. My question is when I pulled the diff apart there didn't seem to be a spacer between the rear pinion bearing and the crush sleeve (collapsible spacer). Is this normal? I want to assemble but this boggles me. mfg date is 03\04 so its the later diff I guess since they changed in 02/04. Is this right? Any help from somebody who knows would be appreciated. note: The crush sleeve that came in the kit is identical except about 1\8" longer but it hasn't been crushed yet. All bearings are the same so it appears I got the right kit but no pinion spacer is available. Thanks
Sounds to me that the spacer was removed due to the difficulty in collapsing it. In practice it requires a good amount of effort to obtain the desired amount of pre-load on the bearings. Most likely some individual simply tossed it out and used the flange nut to lock it all in place OR someone checked the pre-load/tooth contact on initial repair build and forgot to dis assemble and fit the sleeve!
Yes there is about 1/8th extension on the sleeve --haven't measured it but that is about right.
Dennis
 

stoney500

New member
To answer bruceiam: yes a crush sleeve is a collapsable spacer but the service manual calls for another spacer betwwen the crushsleeve and the rear pinion bearing.
 

stoney500

New member
just a note regarding rebuilding diffs: unless you do it for a living, I would pay someone else to do it if you have the money. The tools I had to make to get this thing apart has taken more time than the rebuild itself but I already had all the metal stock and I own welders and grinders etc... so all I am out of pocket is the bearing kit and gear oil totaling about 250.00. I wouldn't consider buying the tooling it would cost over 4000.00 to get Miller tools.
 

bruceiam

New member
To answer bruceiam: yes a crush sleeve is a collapsable spacer but the service manual calls for another spacer betwwen the crushsleeve and the rear pinion bearing.
Good to know. I have rebuilt many diffs from many manufacturers and typically there is just a crush sleeve in there.
 

doug022984

Sporadic Member Since 2015
Where did you find that service manual? I have one and there really isnt much info about the differential.
Under Section 3 Differential and Driveline in the main service manual which can be found here http://diysprinter.co.uk/reference/ along with lots of other goodies. Pages 73-86 appear to cover differential disassembly and reassembly in good detail (at least to me, I've never serviced my differential though).

EDIT: the 2006 manual has the detail on pages 73-86. Upon further research, it does appear that the 2004 manual is lacking this section and only has about 2 pages of info. Other experts on here would have to advise if the 2006 differential is somehow different than 2004, but in my experience (not much) most everything is the same between the 2004-2006 US sprinters.
 
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ions82

Member
Under Section 3 Differential and Driveline in the main service manual which can be found here http://diysprinter.co.uk/reference/ along with lots of other goodies. Pages 73-86 appear to cover differential disassembly and reassembly in good detail (at least to me, I've never serviced my differential though).

EDIT: the 2006Other experts on here would have to advise if the 2006 differential is somehow different than 2004, but in my experience (not much) most everything is the same between the 2004-2006 US sprinters.
While I'm no expert, I can say there is a difference between the EARLY 2004 diff and the later T1Ns. I was ordering my rebuild kit from Europarts-SD (highly recommend them) and saw that there is a different pinion nut and washer for the early 2004s. Those two parts are cheap as chips, so I just ordered them along with. The kit was a little more than could've been had elsewhere, but the fact that they had those special parts (and explained the difference) made the extra money VERY well spent. Getting halfway through a diff rebuild and realizing you need different parts would be a drag.
 

UKmtrsp

Active member
I recently rebuilt the differential in my 05 T1N. I will look at the build date and report back. I was experiencing significant decel noise and whine. After disassembly it was quite evident that the smaller front pinion bearing was deteriorated...both the race and the rollers. Thus leading to complete loss of pinion preload. The pinion was actually getting pulled back into the ring gear on decel causing a incorrect gear mesh. I inspected the carrier bearings and they looked to be in good shape....however while I was waiting for my kit from Europarts to arrive I cut the cage on one of the bearings and to my surprise the inner race which was originally not visible had suffered significant delamination of the hardened surface. Proof that if you can't see and inspect items fully "replace" them while your in there. Do it right the first time and don't try to save a few $'s and be unhappy later.

And yes my pinion assembly had a hard spacer underneath the crush sleeve. About a 1/8th" ring that fit fairly tightly on the pinion shaft. The new crush sleeve comes dimpled and also of a larger diameter than the pinion shaft. As it is crushed and the pinion preload brought in to tolerance it's diameter closes down on the pinion shaft and looks more like the old crush sleeve.

recent threads with good info:

https://sprinter-source.com/forum/showthread.php?t=79502

https://sprinter-source.com/forum/showthread.php?t=72281

All the best, Chip
 

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