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59 Chevy apache rear end

Good evening! Dne’ here;)

The past few weeks I’ve been having a battle with my rear end or differential! However, before I go any further, I have to say, the rear end has to be the most neglected part of a vehicle except for underneath our car seats!! Unless one hears a howl or grinding noise in the back of their car or truck, who do you know that ever thinks about checking or changing the gear oil! Also, I believe one can spend as much on the rear of a vehicle as they could on the front, but for a daily driver, not a show truck, I really want to make this rear end work!

 

The rear axle that was in my 59 Apache was not the original. Only goodness knows how many rear ends may have been in this truck!  This particular rear end was out of an early 80’s Chevy truck, a 12 bolt, but not the 12 bolt used in cool cars~ just a truck rear end with a 3:08 gear ratio, non-posi with drum brakes.

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It’s actually not a very nice looking rear end:(  Eh, who looks under a truck anyway! I do!;)

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Since I work alone, moving things that are awkward and heavy require the use of My Little Mule!  My Little Mule (mini shop crane) makes moving things around the shop so much easier! Every shop should have one!;)

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Finally after a year or so after doing many other things on the truck, I removed the differential cover to discover not so pretty a site. It had about a 1/2 cup of nasty gear oil remaining and the gears were in really bad shape. I wasn’t expecting this!:(

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If the gears looked like that, what would the bearings look like?  Take my word for it, they were really bad!

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Backing up a bit, while I was waiting for the parts to show up, I needed to change the width of the spring saddles. The width of the spring perches were 1″ too wide placing undue stress on the leaf springs by spreading them apart! The width of the original rear end saddles were set at 41.5″ from center hole to center hole, this axle was 42.5″.  So, I ground off the old saddles and bought new ones from Jegs.

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And welded them in place followed by some Rustoleum spray paint.

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I took great care in cleaning and removing all the metal debris and the old 90wt gear oil. I don’t think any smell (automotive) smells as bad as old gear oil! It is nasty! I had removed all the old bearing races, but had installed the outer wheel bearings and seals.

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To remove the old bearing races, I bought this seal and driver kit from Harbor Freight for about 30 bucks! Unfortunately, it didn’t fit one of the races, but did all the others just fine!

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My good friend Dave Chapman, owner of The Hollister Road company, provided his services to set up the gears. It’s fun for me to work alongside a knowledgeable professional, plus I’ll learn something;)  Also Dave helped to find the best deal on all the parts I needed! We’ll be going back with the 3:08 gear ratio.

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Soon, I was headed over to The Hollister Road company with all my new parts and tools where Dave had prepared a work area to get this rear end going again. I brought almost all of the necessary tools that I could think of to make things go more efficiently.

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I had researched online a necessary tool to hold the yoke as it requires 3-400 foot lbs. of torque to set the crush sleeve to specs. So off to ACE hardware for some metal to fabricate this yoke holding tool! Oh, it’s the orange thing in the picture!

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Even with the tool that I made, it still took everything I had to meet the necessary force to crush that darned crush sleeve! Not shown, but I had a very long break over bar and a long cheater pipe to tighten the 1 1/16″ nut!

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Now after all that work, and re-installation of the rear end, it’s done! The rear end works great! It’s quiet, doesn’t leak, and the 3:08 gear allows decent highway speeds without taxing my 350 sbc. For the occasion, I purchased a finned aluminum differential cover to make it more appealing! It’s a shame that under the bed gas tank hides most of it!

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I’m very proud of my hard work and accomplishments over the past couple years on this old truck! However, I don’t think we are ever truly finished with these types of projects as there is always something to change, upgrade, repair and keep up!

me and my truck

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I hope you’ve enjoyed this blog on my 59 Chevy Apache! It’s drawing even closer to the end of this restoration/restorative-modification. The Apache drives fantastic and is a pleasure to drive! It has nice looks, a nice stance, and people honk and wave giving a “thumbs up” which is always appreciated!

Please subscribe to Classic Cars and Tools! I’ll be posting more as time goes on! 😉 dne’

5 Responses so far.

  1. Gary says:

    Your welding looks very nice.

  2. Robbie says:

    Thanks for the lesson on rear ends. Don’t believe I ever thought of mine until I heard those noise’s also.
    Clunk!!

  3. Richard Church says:

    Nice work on the differential. I am running a 308 gears in mine. I just have to narrow the housing and axles. and mine will be all set. Baleagle Sr Rich

    • admin says:

      Hi Richard and thanks! I think 308 gears are just fine for these trucks especially if using a 3 speed transmission like I’m doing. I wish you well on your project!!

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