97 cherokee gear/bearing issues

[traitor5150]

I just bought a 97 cherokee dana 30 front 35 rear. Has 165k on it and the diff oil has never been done When I pulled the covers there was alot of metal shaving and the oil looked like silver paint. Once I cleaned everything I noticed the gears dont look bad at all. Should I replace the gears or just overhaul all of the bearing? Ive overhauled diffs before but always replaced the gears. This thing is loud it sounds like an airplane but Im not shure if the gears are making any noise beacuse the bearing are so bad. Any input?>

 

[traitor5150]

nobody?

 

[Stumpalump]

If the noise is comming from the bearings on the end of the axels then you should be ok to just change those bearings. If you have a bad pinion or carrier bearing and it has been run long this will shift the ring and pinion contact area and couse wear on the ring and pinion. Some silver metal in the lube is normal. If you have to pull the pinion and carrier bearings you have to set up you ring and pinion again. It will be close but you will have to now how to check it and set it. Are you just fixing it up as a daily driver or are you going to beat it? If you rebuild it I'd consider lower gears now. If it's a street jeep you may get by with a cheap fix. Also check the rear axel shafts for twist because they are weak and could couse problems. Check your backlash adjustment and look for pinion yoke movement and you may find a bearing problem. It's hard to tell from your post and I failed mind reading just ask my ex-wife.

 

[traitor5150]

allright ill clear this up a little. It's going to be my stock dd because my MJ is only gets 10 mpg. There where metal pieces on the drain plug about 1 in long cant tell where it came from. the gears look ok no bar scoreing or burn marks pinion seems tight sounds like bad carrier bearings and possibly pinion bearing but I cant tell untill i spin it with the carrier out. Im just wondering if while im in there doing everything else should I put new gears. All I was going to do is replace all the bearings and leave the shims on the inital setup then set the pinion preload. It should be close if I start that way if the gear pattern is off a bit or by backlash is way out ill just go back and correct it.

 

[Stumpalump]

Sounds like you are on trac to me. Are you sure you have both front and rear ends bad? Does one get hoter than the other?

 

[traitor5150]

Well im not shure how the bearing are in the back but the front is definetly loud once I fix the front I may hear the back also. I havet checked the temp of them however. I do know that the back carrier is very loose as in when i turn the wheels i can see the spider gear cross shaft moove in the carrier also the spider gears are somewhat rounded at the ends of the gears and some of them have chips. So at very least I need a carrier in the back but it's a d35 so I can get one probbaly for free/cheap.