Dana 35 Spider Gear help

[94BGCherokee]

The other day I found out one of my axle seals were leaking, so i took apart my rear end, DANA 35, pulled the splines out and well, the spider gears fell out. I put everything back together and broke of a bolt on the cover plate, well the plate started to leak, ok no biggie, however here is the problem. Yestarday when removing the bolt I was relieved to get it out, but There were a lot of metal shavings inside the differential, my mechanic said the spider gears look choppy. Ok so heres the question, would it be from possibly puting the spider gears back in wrong, I have no idea how i could have done that because i made sure it all spun properly before reassembly. I use 75-140 M1 fully synthetic oil with an limited slip additive. I do dog the jeep hard, like in the snow, doing donuts, one tire fire out of the street, hammering the pedal around corners, ect. Will the spider gears go out? Should I replace them now, wait? I dont know what to do. Thanks for all your help.

[ThePhantum]

When you say you "took apart my rear end, DANA 35", did you pull out and take apart the carrier? If so everything...including the orientation of the bearing caps...has to go together exactly the way it came out for the R&P to mesh correctly.
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97 XJ Sport with a bunch of stuff

[Brad The Best]

next time you pull out your axles don't spin the differential and the spiders wont fall out .

you should probably replace your spider's (pinions) or they could take out the hole diff , i mean will . one wheel tire fires usually just wreck axles , or break the pin and cap screw holding it in , rarely ring gear and pinion .

c-clip or non c-clip axle ? im just curious .

gears only have to go back in the same way if there non-hunting . eg 2:1 ratio . hunting gears don't matter eg 3.73 , i would put the spiders back in the same way they came out , same goes for bearing caps (treat them like engine bearings ,position , direction , torque)

[Orangeamc13]

I don't think he would've had to pull the cover if they were non c-clip. I would either replace the spiders or throw in a locker.
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[94BGCherokee]

Thank you for all of your replies, I thought all Dana 35 axles were c clips sorry not to specify. Yes, I did take apart the axle, heres what i did, popped the cover, removed the screw that holds the pin in place to keep the splines from pusing in, took out the pin and pulled the c-clips, removed splines. The gears feel out from there like the replies specified. So, IM curious and have a few questions to the repsonses, i talked to some teachers at school and locals at work. People say detroit lockers are really annoying and that chirping gets annoyting. Also Someone said it is astronomically difficult to pull the carrier and put new spiders and all that, IE putting in a detroit locker is hard. Things have to simmed and they act like its so difficult, put ive seen write ups that act like its not hard at all???? I put my finger in the diff hole where you fill and i seen more slivers again. People are saying ITS GONNA GO OUT FIX IT FIX IT FIX IT, and others are like no it wont it will be fine. It rained today and I usually spin the tires stop sign to stop sign get the speedo up to like 70. But I still dont understand what would cause the shavings, the only thing i can say is i am going to fix the cover again, silicon it this time and look at everything myself again, there is no way in telling. Whats funny is, i am seeing all these shavings and I hear no noises from the rear end, and it still does perfectly fine. This is very stressful because I did change diff fluid once before and being a novice of 18 years old I dont remember if shavings were present at that time (Im thinking there were), but I think that was the first time it was ever changed at 140k. The car has 170k on it, although people say its not normal to have metal shavings. And when I say this I dont mean like chunks, just like tiny peices you can see if you put your finger through the fluid, you would have to hold it in the lite to see the fluid. Also when I put it back together I thought the spiders looked fine myself, so once again ill have to look. I have a DANA 60 at work I may be able to get a hold of, but im not looking to put a whole lot of money in this, if you tell me it wont go out and not to worry about it fine, if not tell me how to fix it b/c little shit like that is annoying. Thanks for all your time and efforts hopefully this will help others and i hope that I have made all possible variables evident to help others help me solve the situation.

[Orangeamc13]

A detroit full locker replaces the whole carrier and is noisy tire wise. Spiders are very easy to replace, you said you already took them out and put them back in. An automatic lunchbox style locker would replace only the spiders and are not difficult too install. Those would be lock-right, power trax, aussie, detroit ez locker, etc.. I would take off the cover and inspect those gears, take them out and have a look, if in doubt throw them out!!!
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[Brad The Best]

changing the carrier isn't hard , shavings are normal however excessive amounts aren't how much is excessive ? i can't really explain , just less is better . yes chunks are bad .

i wouldn't recommend a locker there to dahm noisy , yes they have gotten better but still are loud .

a dana 60 will probably be to wide for your jeep and you will have to get it cut down . however it might fit or be close (get out your tape measure) you also have to make sure it has the matching gear ratio and if your drive shaft will mount up to it and if you can change the yoke .

just put in some new spiders and check your backlash and inspect the ring gear for damage (care full its probably sharp) also how are your axle bearings ? is there any pitting on your axle shafts at the bearing , unfortunately the c-clip style axles use the axle as the inner race and they wear the axle out and then take out the differential but you can put in offset bearings to fix this .



and i found a nice little site to help you set up your diff .
http://www.differentials.com/install.html i think haynes tells you how to do your diff but can't remember , there are some good pictures with ring gear wear see what you have and if yours is okay .