After you get the broken end of the little beast out, what does anyone think about drilling a through hole to make getting it out next time a little less awful? Or any other ideas, because the new one will break again. thanks.

 

Do you do a lot of burnouts?

That's what breaks that cross pin lock bolt. Shears it off. With an open rear end when you spin it a lot, the spider gears are spinning opposite directions in relation to the cross pin which is normally prevented from turning by that lock bolt. Heat builds and sometimes a spider gear grabs the cross pin as it seizes to it, and spins it shearing that lock bolt.

When you pull a one wheel buirnout, one side gear is near stopped, the other side spins twice as fast as the speedometer says, and between them the spiders spin on the cross pin while transmitting power from the pinion gear - ring gear - carrier - cross pin - spider gaers - axle gears - axle - wheel.

Spider gears do not have bearings in them, they aren't intended to spin a lot real fast on that cross pin. They are intended to just spin to allow the right and left axle shafts to spin different speeds going around turns, etc.

Once this happens, the inside of the spider gears and the cross pin usually are burnt blue, gauled up, and while they may last the life of the vehicle under normal conditions, they'll seize up together even faster next time one does a smokey.

Best to remove them and inspect closely ... and probably replace the cross pin and spiders. It can also weqar the holes in the ring gear carrier through which the cross pin goes.

 

I actually have my brothers diff out to swap a new trac loc unit because his factory diff went out and broke the spider gears in half. Any ways we ran into that problem with the broken pinion shaft bolt. We have a new diff, so we just drilled the remains out. And for people in the future with this problem, yes the bolt does go all the way through the pinion shaft. However i would not drill unless you have a replacement diff unit(carrier), also snap on has a special extractor tool to remove this broken pinion shaft bolt. If i was faced with that again i would go to the ford house and see if their rear end tech has that extractor and offer him a fair price to come by and extract it. Hope this might help some one in the future that stumbles on this problem.