D60,70, 80 case spreader

red dodge2

red dodge2

New member
looking into maybe getting one of these. do they help alot when changing gears? seen them before but never got my hands on one to use. wanting some opinions from those who have used them. does it make it easier when setting the carrier preload?

any other companys make them besides yukon?
 
Have you thought about building one yourself? I've always used a bfh, but man a case spreader would be awesome! A pinion bearing puller would be pretty nice too.
 
We don't use one, but I know some that do. I've got 17 hooks this year and only 1 break *knocks on wood*. Have replaced the R&P twice, once because I broke, and the other because there was a tiny chip off of one of the ring gear teeth. It probably would have been fine, but I decided to change it. Definitely going to pull the cover off and check it out before Scheid. Will probably put a new set in it just for good measure. We've set em up about every way you can think to try them, loose pinion preload, tight carrier preload, tight pinion preload, tight lash, loose lash, whatever... Seems like it doesn't make a lot of difference as to how long they last. What has seemed to help though is running a diff cover with load bolts for the main caps, and after I broke one of my 2nd main cap I went to a set of billet main caps.

FWIW I know of several pullers who just run setup bearings on the pinion to make swapping them out quicker.
 
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BluegrassDiesel said:
We don't use one, but I know some that do. I've got 17 hooks this year and only 1 break *knocks on wood*. Have replaced the R&P twice, once because I broke, and the other because there was a tiny chip off of one of the ring gear teeth. It probably would have been fine, but I decided to change it. Definitely going to pull the cover off and check it out before Scheid. Will probably put a new set in it just for good measure. We've set em up about every way you can think to try them, loose pinion preload, tight carrier preload, tight pinion preload, tight lash, loose lash, whatever... Seems like it doesn't make a lot of difference as to how long they last. What has seemed to help though is running a diff cover with load bolts for the main caps, and after I broke one of my 2nd main cap I went to a set of billet main caps.

FWIW I know of several pullers who just run setup bearings on the pinion to make swapping them out quicker.
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That's good info, thank you.

The first set of gears I did, in college, a classmate twice my aged helped with. He had a shop, lots of tools, and lots of experience with fabrication and mechanics, so I trusted him. He didn't have a press, so he heated my pinion bearings so hot they turned dark blue, dropped them on, and away we went. I put thousands of miles on that bearing set, and so did the guy that eventually bought the axle from me. No failures.

That goes against everything I now know about metallurgy, roller bearings, and mechanics in general, but I'll be damned if it didn't get the job done for many years. I'd never recommend this practice for a street truck, or running setup bearings, but for an "off-road" rig, I'm all for quick and easy maintenance!
 
My dad and I built one years ago when I was putting lockers in my old F-150, made doing the D44 a lot easier. Made it out of scrap steal I had laying around. Used some 1-1/2" square tubing for the beams, 3/4" all thread for the jack bolts, and 1/4" bolts with the heads cut off for the pins to engage the housing. With the way it was built, it wanted to twist out of the pin holes, but a couple C-clamps from the tubing to the webs fixed that. Hard to complain with zero dollars invested.

It made installing the carrier way easier. Especially with a rotary seal on the ARB, I didn't get the warm and fuzzies taking a dead blow to set it back in.
 
Diff case preload is not as much on 70 and 80 models as it is on say a 44 model. For a pulling truck, it may not make much difference on how its set up, but for daily driver it makes a huge difference. I think it would make a difference on a pulling truck also. Should last longer if its setup properly. If you do stretch it, don't over stretch it. You can go to far.
 
I just bought one of these. It was quite a bit cheaper then the OTC one and others I looked at. (got it on ebay cheaper than what they listed on the website also) Should be trying it out within the next few weekends. It seems to be a pretty well made piece for the money in my opinion I'm happy with it so far will know more when I actually get to use it though.

Check out Extreme Custom Fabrication it is in the differential tools section, they also have a few other tools in there also that would come in handy for setting up a differential.
 
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