Newbie here. I love this forum. Spent the last 4 days drooling over all the information. Waded through a ton of posts on differentials and gleaned some information regarding my rear axle/differential, but I have a few more steps to fully convince myself what I have.
The Reader's Digest version: I 'obtained' this truck 20 years ago and drove it for several years. It's a '59 Apache 3100 with the original 235 and 3 spd column shift. The truck has stayed with me (only idle) and now my youngest son and I are returning the old girl back to the street.
Everything leaks.
To keep his brakes safe, the rear axle needs new seals. We opened up the diff and removed the right side axle. It has a 17 spline axle and 6 lugs for the wheel. The part of the axle that rides on the outboard wheel bearing is 1.875" diameter.
The differential has 39 teeth on the ring gear and 10 on the pinion gear. I suspect I have a 3.90 ratio diff.
The teeth on the ring gear are showing some scoring and the spider gears have some bad pitting.
When we pulled the right axle, we found a piece of what looks like a ring gear tooth inside the axle. **This is not from the current ring gear!** There is a mark on the rear cover that appears to have been caused by an earlier catastrophic event. (before I owned the truck)
So- to make a long post even longer;
1)What model rear axle/differential do I have?
2) How available will new replacements parts be to find?
Thanks
Chris
Last edited by rxpx40; 02/13/2008 5:26 AM. Reason: added link
