88 - honestly not sure.
Okay, so I've started this, I figured I'd doc what I've done so far.
First, after talking to the guys at corner-carvers, I changed my parts list just a hair. I ended up getting the following:
FRONT---------------------
From the junkyard:
1 set of spindle assemblies from a '94 Mustang. I believe these are off a sixxer, shouldn't matter though as near as I can tell, sixxers and GTs shared brakes.
Had the rotors turned, and I'll be picking up some new pads today. Usually I never advocate parts house pads, but this is just to put this together.
REAR--------------------------
From LRS:
This kit:
79-93 Mustang 5 Lug Rear 28 Spline Axle & Drum Kit at LRS - Same Day Shipping!
2 of these guys:
79-04 Mustang Rear Axle Bearing And Seal at LRS - Same Day Shipping!
And one a gasket:
86-10 Mustang 8.8" Rear Differential Cover Gasket at LRS - Same Day Shipping!
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I apologize, there are NO PICS. I don't have a camera besides my cell-phone, and I'm not taking pictures with it when I've got greasy hands. And I'm too lazy to scrub my hands every step to take pictures.
Tackled the rear first. I do suggest having a buddy help you. You don't NEED a hand, and could certainly do this alone, but having an extra set of hands will keep you from having to crawl out from under the car and diving back in a bunch of times.
Started by chocking a front tire, jacking up the rear end by the diff, and setting it down on two jackstands. Removed jack.
Pulled the wheels. Lugnuts are 13/16". Tried to pull the drums. Released e-brake, pulled drums.
Slid my drain pan under the diff. Pulled the diff cover (1/2"), leaving the two upper side bolts in place. Slid a putty knife in to crack the seal, and let the old nasty 90-weight out. When it was mostly drained, pulled the remaining bolts, and removed diff cover. I was lazy, and didn't pull my rear sway bar, so this involved a little monkeying around. If your swaybar isn't held on by nylocks, I'd suggest pulling it first, as it'll make access that much easier.
B-12 chemtool'd the crap out of the diff, so I could see what I was looking at.
When looking at the diff, you'll see open sides and "closed" sides. Open sides are the ones where you can see the spider gears.
Had buddy turn the axle so the diff had a closed side facing out. The difference between the two closed sides is that one has a 5/16" head (maybe 1/4", maybe metric, 5/16" worked for me) bolt that sticks out. The bolt is parallel to the axles, and holds the axle-pin in. Pull this bolt. Mine had been lock-tite'd previously, and took more torque than I was expecting.
With that bolt out, the pin will slide freely. Rotate the diff so that the pin is sloping downward towards the back of the car, then push it in (up) about 1/2" or so in. Rotate the diff backwards (exposed part of pin will come over the top), then pull the pin. Don't go the other way, or that pin will hit the pinion gear.
With the pin removed, had my Buddy rotate the diff so an open side was facing out, and push one axle in. This exposes the C-clip, which in my case just fell the f--- out. With the C-clip removed, we slid the axle out.
Axle bearings/seals were a while-I-was-in-there. These took the majority of the time we had wrapped up in the swap.
I popped the old seal out with a claw hammer. I don't recommend this, but it worked for me (pretty damn good, I might add).
For the bearings, went down to Kragen and rented kit #5 - slide hammer. This is a multi-function kit, that came in handy for more than just the slide hammer portion.
Started by using the 3-claw setup, claws facing outward. Make sure to slide the nut on, cup faces towards the claws (yes, I started without the cup, hahaha). We found this to not work for crap initially. However, it did mangle the rollers such that they started coming out of the old bearing. Not wanting any of the old rollers to end up in the diff, we pulled all of them, just leaving the bearing race. We attacked the bearing again, this time hooking on the closer side of the bearing race. That worked significantly better, and for the other side, we started by just pulling the rollers and cage from the bearing.
We then cleaned up the surface. I wasn't sure whether to pack the axle bearing or not. My Chilton guide said something about putting "axle lubricant" on it before installation, I don't know wtf "axle lubricant" is. I figured if I didn't pack it and it needed to be, I'd burn a bearing. If I did pack it and it didn't need to be, I'd get some wheel bearing grease co-mingling with the diff fluid.
I packed the bearing.
To install, I wiped out the surface, again, with a blue towel sprayed with chemtool. I set the packed bearing in, then using the "fwd axle tool" that came with Kit #5 - slide hammer, tamped the bearing in with my 4-lb cross-peen hammer (anything sledgy will work here) When it was mostly flush, I used the old bearing race between the bearing and the fwd axle tool to tamp it all the way into position. Seal was installed in the same manner.
Now we had to draw the studs into the axles. This was done by using my impact wrench (if you don't have an impact, I have no clue how you would go about this at home), a fresh pack of open-ended lug nuts and two washers. Insert stud into axle, put washers over it, thread nut, hit it with the impact until it was all the way through. We went through 4 lug nuts doing this for 10 studs - they just don't hold up to the torque. Luckily, they're designed to strip out before the studs do, so when you feel it start to slip, just keep hitting it with the impact until it's free-spinning. Then pull the lug nut off, unthread the threads left in the stud, grab a new lug nut, and keep going. If you have a small capacity air compressor like I do, make sure the tank is all the way full on pressure each time, you'll want all the torque you can get.
For installing the axles, the Chilton guide mentions O-rings. Where the C-clips go, there should be an O-ring. It should rest closer to the end. Near as I can tell, these O-rings are to keep the C-clip from rattling. We put new ones on both axles.
From here on it's downhill. We slid the axles in, being careful not to mangle the shiny new axle seals. It might take a little bit of finagling to get the axles to slide into the spider gears. Slide them in as far as you can, then insert the C-clip. Pull the axle back out, and the C-clip will slide back into it's home, and stay put. I suggest using a pair of needlenose pliers to insert the C-clips, unless you have TINY fingers.
With both axles in, we cleaned up the gasket surface on the diff cover, chemtooled the crap out of the inside, grabbed the new gasket, slid everything into place, and started putting the diff cover back on. Torque specs per the gasket were 30 ft-lbs, with an initial step at 15 (yeah, I used a torque wrench... lowest I've ever set one). Gasket had a specific pattern it wanted nuts tightened in, it's basically it's typical wheel/valvecover/head style criss-cross style tightening.
EDIT: With both axles in, o-ringed and C-clipped, don't forget to reinstall the locking pin and locking pin retaining bolt before you put the diff cover back on. I put a dab of red loctite on. I realized I forget to mention this about half-way through my dog-walk after posting this originally, hahaha.
Slid the new drums on. Ideally you should adjust your brakes here. I didn't, as it was dark, I have new brake shoes sitting on my counter, and I just wanted to get the car back on the ground.
Now for the fun part - filling the diff. Now, whoever at Ford who decided to put the fill plug on the front of the differential, and not on the cover, you need to get slapped. The diff plug is a square-drive inset - a 3/8" drive extension fits in there perfectly.
We rigged up a beer-bong style setup to get fluid from the quart containers of redline 75w-90 into the tiny horizontal hole, using a small funnel and a piece of clear tubing I had on another gear-oil pump. S-L-O-W-L-Y the fresh fluid went down into the diff. It probably took 15 minutes for both quarts (spec says 3.8ish pints, we spilled a little bit, I called it good).
Reinstalled the fluid plug, pulled the drain pan from under the diff, grabbed my 5-lug wheels, installed, rejacked the rear up, pulled the jackstands, set the car down, torqued the lugnuts to 85 ft-lbs.
Today, I tackle the front.
