I just completed this project on my 2006 Dodge Sprinter 2500 Single rear wheel.
I’d like to say thanks for all the contribution in this thread, it made the job possible for an average joe like me.
With that, I wanted to contribute more to this thread in hopes of helping others and adding the few pieces of info I didn’t have going into the project. Let’s get into it:
Being new to differentials, I could not find enough evidence/info online to pin-point exactly what I needed to replace. Many posts stated what their issue was (their sounds) then failed to give enough detail on what exactly fixed their problem. “Full Rear end rebuild” was stated often, but that is a very broad statement. My rear end “sounds” were different than Zundfolge’s, so I wasn’t confident it was just my bearings like his─assuming he’s male.
My sprinter had a violent whine on acceleration and howl on deceleration. The whine started around 20-25mph and got worse, never stopping if you were on the throttle. The howl started right when you let off the throttle (decelerating). Even going 15-20 in a neighborhood, when you let off the throttle, you heard a loud howl/grind. Tough to explain the howl/grind, but it was a lower pitched noise. If you were cruising and put the van in neutral (or had the perfect amount of throttle), the noises got quiet.
It didn’t matter if I was turning either, so that eliminated wheel bearings.
I put the rear end on jack stands, disabled the ASR thing, and listened for noise (from the side) as my girlfriend held the throttle steady. It was clear my center support bearing was making noise AND something in the rear. I replaced the center support bearing but my rear end noise was clearly still there.
From there, I first changed my diff fluid─ no change in sounds. Then I removed the diff cover and I had a ton of metal shavings in my oil. TONS. My carrier and inside was also covered in black sludge (I just bought this van).
As I mentioned, I couldn’t determine if I needed a new ring and pinion? Or Should I buy a new carrier because of my metal shavings? Or will just pinion bearings fix my issue?
What should I replace when I'm in there???? I had no idea.
Now that I am complete and all noises gone, here is what I replaced:
Front and rear pinion bearings (and races) and the two carrier bearings.
I did not replace wheel bearings, even though I had metal shavings in the old oil. But, I inspected them and cleaned them out in the process. (By inspected, I spun them and they didn’t make weird noises or felt loose). I did not take the ring off nor did I disassemble the carrier.
My rear end is silent and makes no noise. I reused the original carrier and ring/pinion set.
So, if your rear end is making a howling/whining noise, chances are high you only need new bearings. Before the bearing replacement, I had my Gf drive the van while I stood in the back to see were the noise came from, but that was a fools game. The jack stand thing helped and I hope helps you realize if it’s your center support bearing or rear.
Ok, onto my notes with the project. I tend to ramble, so thanks for taking the time to read my detailed notes:
I bought the Timken Differential rebuild Kit DRK-307MK. I picked it up on Ebay, $242 to my door. It had a tube of RTV, yellow gear paint, correct pinion crush sleeve, tons of spacers, a mystery mini spacer, and all the bearings. I’ve never seen the Europarts kit in person, but the Timken kit was packaged just like the Europarts and $60 cheaper (not including Europarts shipping). In hindsight, I would have bought the individual bearings/seals that the folks list in previous posts on this thread. I compared their bearing numbers to mine and they match.
Outside basic auto tools, I spent $180-ish on tools I didn’t have. Here’s my list of purchased ─ and used─ tools:
-ARES ¼ drive beam torque wrench. Amazon $22
-1500W Heat gun. Amazon $19.75
-Orion Motor Tech 10 pcs Bearing/race Driver set. Amazon 27.99
-32mm 12point shallow Socket for pinion nut. Auto Zone $11.85
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3lb Mini sledge hammer. Harbor freight $7.99
-Long drive Punch set. Harbor Freight. $8.99
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Mini pick set. Harbor Freight $1.99 Must have for parking brake shoe install.
-Tube of grease. Harbor Freight $6.99
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Bearing separator kit. Harbor Freight. $50 If you line up a press to use, and your friend has the large puller, you wouldn’t need this.
With my $242 bearing kit, $20 pumpkin gasket, and these tools─ total project cost me $442-ish. That doesn’t include shop towels, degreaser, etc. Hopefully you wont have to buy all the above tools (this was a very large project for me) AND save cash buying the bearings individually, skipping the wasted spacers, shims, ring bolts, and rtv. I live in the Phoenix area and was quoted $700 for just labor. No way I was paying $1000+ for a job on a van I just paid $1200 for.
Ok, on to my tips:
-The most important thing needed for this project, if you’ve never done a rear end, is the determination to keep going when things aren’t going right.
-Take it step by step. There's too much info to take it all in at once and you sure as hell won't remember it all. After you begin working, most of this will make sense. This is a large project with many steps, do your research, watch the video in the first post, but plan to take breaks and research things you forgot as you go. Your research is more effective once you’re in the middle of the actual task.
-Goto a DIY car wash before starting and pressure wash/degrease the underside, rear axle case, sway bar, drive shaft etc. You will save this time with less hand/arm washing.
-Without a lift, hammering the races in while laying in my driveway was the hardest/most tiring and frustrating part. It’s the part that drove me to feel I made a mistake taking the project on myself. You must hammer until you get really pissed it’s not going in, then you magically hammer enough for it to go in. Just keep hammering. And make sure to stay an arms length away from the case so you have the most leverage. My race would get off center from time to time, so I’d hit it from the back (with a punch) to get it straight again. I heated the outside of the diff case, but no idea if it actually worked. As Midwestdrifter says, grease the outside of bearing race before you start. I also tried the freezer part. This is the step that made me say next time id drop the entire rear for this project
-To get the front (smaller) pinion race out, I put a race driver in from the larger hole instead of hammering w/ punch like shown in the video. This allowed me to give it 2-3 big blows instead of punching around the race.
-I posted in my neighborhood app asking to use a shop press. I originally bought a heat gun to heat the old bearings on/off, but my large pinion bearing (it’s the bearing that was busted) wouldn’t come off with the harbor freight puller Midwestdrifter linked above. With how tiring the project is, I’d highly recommend lining up a friend or just buying the $140 press from harbor freight.
-When pressing new bearings on, the old bearings/races were great to have in aiding the install at the press. Others used pipe or square tube, I put a bunch of random things together because I had no random steel pipe laying around (see photo).
-Make sure to take lots of cell pictures before you take things apart, mainly the E-brake setup (star adjuster location, little actuator piece, direction of shoes, etc). Star adjustor goes to van’s forward side of shoe assembly. Actuator in rear.
-When reassembling the parking brake shoes, install the actuator thing to parking brake line first (in the unfolded position), but keep the parking line unbolted from axle so you can move the actuator in and out. Once you have the two linked up, wiggle everything so the actuator goes into folded position. From there, Put the rear spring (one w/ more coils) on your two shoes and install that setup first. Then you put star adjuster in place and spread your front spring with the pick.
-I cleaned my silver lined axle tubes with a 5’ piece of 1x1 wood (see photo) and a rag. I sprayed degreaser down the tube, put a rag in on the wheel side, and shoved the rag through to the diff case. Repeat x6. Then sprayed brake clean to polish ‘er off.
-I didn’t buy (or make) a case separator. With an 8” pry bar and rag, it popped out very easy. Going in was annoying and a case spreader would have been much easier. But it wasn’t terrible, just took patience. I pushed the entire carrier with race and shims in hand, into the case by hand, sitting under the van in the wheel well area. I aligned it by hand, kept one hand pressing, then hammered with rubber mallet. After a while, it got in enough and I used the cap’s to finish getting it into place. Make sure it’s sync’d with your pinion. But that kinda just happened. This step is another reason I would have removed the entire rear end.
-The harbor freight bearing separator kit I linked works as a pinion yolk remove tool (see photo). The threads of the smaller puller are the same as your yolk threads.
-To hammer larger pinion race in, I taped an extension to the race driver (see photo).
-Crushing the pinion sleeve and setting preload ended up being much easier than I expected, so don’t stress over it. But just like the original post says, GO SLOW and don’t use an impact. You don’t actually need an impact for this entire job. I threaded the long bolt from the harbor freight bearing separator kit (as above, threads are the same as pinion yolk) into the yolk so it stuck out the back 1inch (photo at bottom). This bolt hit the diff case and stopped the yolk from spinning. I then tightened the 32mm until I needed lots of force. At this point, you could tell there was lots of pinion play still. So, I then tightened one 12 point at a time until the pinion preload spin-torque was within the 15-30 in.lb range. Whatever you do, just go one 12 point at a time. It was annoying to unthread the long bolt each time, but It’s sure as hell better than waiting on a new crush sleeve. The yolk eventually gets pretty tight to spin. Way tighter than I thought a diff should spin, ha. Once it gets tough to spin by hand, this is when you need to be very careful and stop on the one 12pt per try because it becomes less. I was scared and did less than 1 degree per spin test. I was around 10in.b
-Because I was only replacing bearings, I went with Zundfolge’s logic that the original spacers would suffice. Outside of pinion preload and my ring/pinion contact pattern, I didn’t check any other specs. BUT, I could feel there was some backlash in pinion, so I felt safe because you don’t want it to be 0. As I drive the van more, I’ll repost here if my rear end blew up. I have faith it’s just fine.
-to check contact of pinion and ring gear, rub the paint on both sides (concave and contour) of ring gear grooves. One side is accel side, one is decel. Do it in 3-4 sections on ring gear. Don’t wait for it to dry because it doesn’t dry. Spin the yolk both ways, full circle, and look at the paint. It gets real technical, but if your wear marks are in the middle of the gear, you’re good.
-My new pumpkin gasket didn’t arrive before I was done, so I used the old gasket, no rtv, and it doesn’t leak. Diff took about 1.8 qts. I used 75w-90 mobile 1 gear oil GL-5 rated. I found so many opinions online about proper gear oil it baffled me. It was truly a dead end search, wasted 20 minutes of my life standing in front the shelf at autozone. Then again, people play the same game for engine oil, so maybe I’m the fool. The service manual said MB 90W. Then said a GL-5 can be substituted. So I picked a 90w GL-5. Just like the oil change game, some will hate on my decision, some don’t care. If the van ran on sludge and trashed bearings for 2 years, I’m sure this mobile 1 is like a fresh coat of lotion on my dry skin.
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This job took me 2 weekends to complete. All in, I’d say 20 hours. Depends how you work of course, I took breaks and stuff. Answered the old lady’s questions, food, etc. I also spent many hours researching.
If I did this job again, I would fully remove the rear end from the van. You’re already taking 80% of it apart, a few leaf spring and shock bolts, the entire thing would have been dropped. I’m 30 years old and my body hurt from crawling under that thing over and over. Plus, it was very hard hammering the races in/out under the van. Your leverage is limited.
As for mechanic ability, I’m your typical DIY mechanic. No career in it. If you can do a brake job, you can do this job. It’s just a long job.