This is happening in my daily driver truck but since 10 bolt rear ends are common I thought it might benefit rodders with a similar problem. The rear carrier bearings went out in my truck before i got it. One bearing let loose and chipped some gear teeth and trashed the carrier. I bought a used one with spider gears in it, added new ring and pinion gears, added all new bearings and put it together. Ran good with no problems. Then I started getting a "CLUNK" when putting it into gear. thought is was a universal joint. Replaced the joint... nope, its inside the rear. I opened the cover and rotated the drive shaft back and forth. It looks like the spider gears are worn. They have slop in between them. I know there are "cups" that mount behind the gears that the axles go through, but neither the old rear or the new carrier had these on the other 2 gears (That the cross shaft goes through). When I rebuilt it, everything looked good (like 1 year ago). There arent any shavings in the oil. Im a little lost on how they got so loose. Anyone know is there a shim kit or something to fix this or am I stuck buying new spider gears? I wanna get it fixed before something goes out and wrecks the whole rear.
go to a gm dealer and get new shims for the side gears and the spider gears. Of course you will need to be able to tell them what the rear end came out of originally. IIRC there is only one thickness shim, you will be amazed at the difference just a few thousandth difference will make between the old shim and the new. We used to take the 10 bolt and force extra shims in for circle track racing for a poor mans posi in classes that didnt allow posi. Usually only lasted a couple of races and made only a small difference.
been there done this with my 97 c 1500 spider gears were worn out and had a clunking sound mostly when slowing down. The dealer was outragous for new gears even going though work. I also measured the carrier where the axle goes and it was wornout. Replaced it with a eaton posi well worth the money
Thanks for all the replys everyone. Its actually in my 89 C1500 truck. I'll give the shims a try. It can only make it better. Unfortunatley upgrading to a posi is not in the budget for my daily driver.
yea.......get the new shims and try to push them in behind the old ones to snug it up. Racyredhd is right.....kinda like a poor mans posi for awhile.
Poor boys? We'd weld every third spider back her in and hammer out Worked good Yup Shim it Unless they bring back Ascot Park!
Check the button on the end of the axles along with the center pin and clips for wear while you are in there, G.M. had some issues with these parts wearing prematurely and the clips falling out. Not fun!
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