Rear-end rebuild update

[Whiteshadow89158]

So the trailing arm got delivered to the wrong house so i'm gunna have to hold off the rebuild till thanksgiving but i got some work done.

After being pressure washed:

In this pic you can see where the PO damaged the trailing arm with a torch at the bottom of the main base.

and this is where he welded on the castle nut.

Diff+crossmember after some mineral spirits:

Right hand T/A:

and misc.

 

[Rebelrob]

Hi, what is the size of the batwing(carrier assembly bolts)? There are two of them. Left and right side that attache the carrier to the frame. I am in the process of removing mine and it looks like I do not have the right size socket. Not sure if its standard or metric. The largest metric I have is a 20 mm and it did not fit and my standard set , cannot remember but I think it was 7/8 and it was a little loose.

BTW, can you remove the batwing from the differential?

Thanks,
R

 

[Whiteshadow89158]

i'm not possitive but it might be 3/4. The diff is easily removed from the crossmember, just be carful with your gears.

 

[Rebelrob]

Got it.... I used a 21 mm box end wrench and backed it up with a crescent wrench...

Yeah, I would like to take the batwing off. The gears are bolted in though correct? The batwing does not provide any support to the guts of the differential I would think.

 

[GTR1999]

If you power washed the diff I would pull the cover to be sure there's no water in it. Better now then later. If you're going to rebuild it then it doesn't matter.

If the T/A is rotted or bent replace it now as well.
Those look like non CA arms, I've rebuilt CA arms and they came out better then you see in catalogs.

 

[Whiteshadow89158]

ya the left side T/A wasnt even reuseable so i ordered a new one. The other side looked good though so i'm just going to overhaul it. There were alot of saftey issues that needed to be addressed on the suspension. I didnt find most of them untill the rear end was apart.