Diff pinion nut - somewhat loose ?

I've thought about this recently. Had the nut come loose on the F250 and take out the pinion, ring and carrier ($1500 worth of parts - labor is free). If I had caught it before the gears collided, I could have saved the trouble. But...

Ford is a crush sleeve design. The engineer in me says run it back to torque and you would be good to go. However all the readings say to replace the crush sleeve - PITA to do.

In your case - there is a reason that it is loose. Bearing going out?? You could just torque it back up, but would need to keep a close eye that the looseness doesn't recur. Other end of the spectrum (and the right way to do it) is to rebuild the rear end with new pinion bearings, crush sleeve (if used), nut and seal.

I know I am not much help, except to say that you should not ignore this. Bigger trouble will result.

You should have a ring of soft metal that allows you to "peen" or slightly dent it into a groove of the shaft.
That prevents it from moving.
Here's a thread about it.

That sure looks like a rear axle nut from the 101 cars. Don’t know where the tab washer would have come from. For a tab washer to work correctly there needs to be a tab pointing in that engages the slot in the pinion shaft. If you can turn the tab washer in any direction more than 30*, then the inner tab is broken or missing and the tab washer is useless.

Dear All

Many thanks for your thoughts/comments .

My thought is to re-torque the nut and monitor things - with the understanding that should the preload be either too tight or too loose , there will be a noisy complaint from the diff during either acceleration or deceleration (?)

By the Way - I can slightly turn the nut with my fingers but only slightly before the tab stops things .

Thanks for your time Mark - Fingers Crossed ….

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It's very common to be loose. Clean, install with new lock tab, torque, bend tang over. For belt n suspenders approach, put a drop of removable loctite on.
Andrew

Its a non LSD. So it uses a ring nut and locktab. Also someone has been beating on it with a punch. I would recommend a new nut and locktab and the correct socket to torque it down with.

Andrew said:

It's very common to be loose. Clean, install with new lock tab, torque, bend tang over. For belt n suspenders approach, put a drop of removable loctite on.
Andrew

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👍 Thanks All

Remove, clean, blue loctite, torque. Change oil.

I am about to go through this process to correct a pinion seal leak. Non lsd diff. Nut is just fine, i.e nobody has used a punch on it. What are torque specs for retightening?

doncorleone said:

I am about to go through this process to correct a pinion seal leak. Non lsd diff. Nut is just fine, i.e nobody has used a punch on it. What are torque specs for retightening?

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Pete