A while back the rear of my suburban decided to throw a few teeth off the ring gear and generally cause some carnage to itself. At that point I started reading and reading and reading so I could replace the gears myself. I finally amassed all the parts and tools that I was going to need for the endeavor and was extremely excited about getting to work on the truck over spring break since its been a good 6 months since I've touched it. So I wake up today excited about tearing into the axle and things start off well. Everything is coming off smoothly no real problems or bad bolts. I really should have known..... I get the caps off the carrier and set aside. Then I pull the carrier out and the driver side bearing falls off. I didn't think much of it figuring that its just got so many miles (180k since '89) on it that the carrier wore away the inside of the bearing. When I get the carrier out from under the truck and begin to clean and catalog parts I noticed the ring gear side of the carrier is FLAT. It definantly confused me for a good 5 minutes until I noticed it wasn't a clean cut flat surface. The carrier was sheared off right at the base of the bearing. OH joy, something else I've gotta go buy to get the truck running again. Pictures are to come once I've finished cleaning up. Damn gov-loc rear......

Oh, and how do yall get ring gear bolts out with carrier out of the housing? I'm thinking about putting the whole carrier in a vice especially since its shot, but is there an ingenious way of loosening these bolts that I'm not thinking of!?

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http://img156.imagevenue.com/loc38/th_07858_100_1130_122_38lo.jpg (http://img156.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=07858_100_1130_122_38lo.jpg)

An impact?

I wrapped 2 towels around mine, held it between my knees (no jokes :flipoff2: ) and had at it with an impact :)

Gov locks suck, that either happens or the case splits in half. Good job GM

Is that an 8.5 10 bolt? Ring gear bolts are left handed if it is...

lol yup its the 8.5 and I knew they were left handed. I broke down and just impacted them out so I could make sure I had all the right parts. Now my problem is not having a carrier and when I get a new one how am I going to go about torqueing the bolts to spec? Cause I couldn't get em out without the impact. Haha oh the joys of the truck :D

Ring gear bolts are typically loctited in, so a little heat may have helped but who cares. You will need a carrier open or otherwise and ring and pinon and I would just change all the barings and seals anyways. Most Master kits come with new ring gear bolts, just torque them to spec (which really isn't that much, I don't recal the actual figure but it may only be like 60 foot pounds) and use loctite.
HTH

Same schiat happend to my suburban, luckily I worked at Currie and got a smokin deal on a Auburn Gear posi. Ray Currie says the when manufacturer makes the carriers they are very well builtand solid but GM has them modified and weakens them for whatever reason.