[MaxPF]

Originally Posted by MaxPF

Now comes the fun part. I go to put it back together only to find out that the outer pinion bearing doesn't want to slip over the pinion shaft. WTF?!?! I fuss with it some more, and bigger than $#!t I manage to pop the garter spring off the seal WTF, is Mercury in retrograde or something? Of course, there is no way to re-install the spring with the seal in place, so I say eff it and remove the seal. At least now I can remove the outer pinion bearing from the support assembly and see what the deal is. Simple answer: it is a light PRESS FIT onto the pinion shaft! By this time I am swearing a littany of curses at the engineer who took a perfectly good design (the original GM 14BFF) and decided to "improve" upon it.

Looks like my memory was faulty. According to my 1991 shop manual,the 14b axles have always had press-fit outer pinion bearings. It was every but as much fun to assemble as I hoped it would be.

Cliff notes for those who have assembled D60' and D70's, 10b's and 14bsf's; if you think the crush sleeves on these axles are a bish to compress, you haven't had the pleasure of working on a 14bff. Now granted, Snap-On air impacts are a bit weak-sauce compared to an Ingersoll-Rand unit, but mine (1/2" drive) has always been able to crush D60, D70, 10b, and 14bsf sleeves. The brand new sleeve in the 14bff just laughed at it. I ended up having to break out the 3/4" long-handle ratchet with a cheater bar and reef on it for a half hour to get it crushed to the specified preload. This thing was a stone bich that I have no desire to repeat. IF I have to do another one in the future I guarantee I will pre-crush the sleeve in a press to within .020" of final length to safe a lot of grief. Or, borrow a 3/4" drive impact.

Anyway, got it running now. I'm hoping it fixes the vibe problem, but I'm not holding my breath...