The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop 64-69 Coil Spring Rear End

Hey folks, I've run into a little trouble with the '64, it's my daily driver and I'm riding the bus until the fix so any advice is wildly appreciated here. Here goes:

The rear end is in poor shape. It's a coil spring 12 bolt truck unit, 3:73 gears. Both axle seals are bad and the brakes need rebuilt. The brake work led to the discovery of all this other mess. So I was off to fix the seals, no big deal, peel off the diff cover and find this other gory mess. Looks like the pinion has slid forward into the carrier, so the carrier is all marred up and the face of the pinion gear is ate off, can't tell exactly how much but it looks pretty rough.

So I'm kicking around options and I thought I'd ask your opinions. Option (1)is a total overhaul of this rear end, including the brakes, axle seals and perhaps bearings, plus a gear swap. The carrier is ugly but functionally sound as near as I can tell. I don't really like this option because I'd want to hand the gear swap job over to a pro, and I think that might be costly. With everything involved, this sorta seems like the 'polishing a turd' option to me, even though I prefer to squeeze all the life possible out of original parts. Option (2)is a complete new rear end drum to drum. The cost of one of these would likely be comparable to the cost of repair to the old unit, and I could easily install it myself. I've already put out the wanted ad for anyone's used 64-69 rear ends in the swap meet. Can you folks through out some references for new or remanufactured units for me to price? I'd appreciate it?

Again, any thoughts or feedback is greatly appreciated, thanks!

A used rear end is the only reasonable price option. Jaspers rebuilds them but the price would be prohibitive. Even then you will probably have to put seals in & work on the brakes.

The '63 & '64 axles are different than the '65-'69 axles (2 WD). Main difference is 17 splines for '63-'64 and 30 splines for '65-'69. Look for a number to verify what you have or you can pull an axle to count splines...

Thanks for the input, folks. I've been mulling it over for a couple of days now and I'm pretty well set on getting a whole replacement rear end. Good to know about the axle disparity though, splashoil. My main concern now is just being certain that the whole rear end I find as a replacement is a direct replacement. Any 64-72 1/2 ton is coil spring and should fit right up where the old one did right? I've heard that the 70-72's were a little wider, so I've narrowed the search to a 64-69 for the time being.

bump