jmdave69
Well-known member
Since there have been so many questions concerning "How to install a Spool" and I just happened to have one to install, Art (nc_zuk) offered to help me do the install and do a detailed write-up. First thing first! This is a guide only and NOT the manufacturers instructions! Proper torque settings should be applied in accordance to the Suzuki Factory Service manual. But since the spool came with NO instrustions this is the best we can do. That being said Art and I feel pretty darn confident that if you follow our instructions listed below, any confident guy with the willingness to get gear oil all over him can do a spool install with these instructions. So here goes!!!
As with any project it is a good practice to remove the postitve cable from the battery. You never know when your child will jump in the zuk and turn the key!
It is also important to chalkblock the front tires to prevent the Zuk from moving on you while you are banging on the rear drums. Remember, safety first!!
Lets get started!! Once your vehicle is blocked and up on jack stands you can get to work.
I needed to remove the tires just to make room to work around stuff or you may not need to
Next i needed to do a good bit of work on E-brake retaining pin. It was all rusted together and didn't want to come out. Once you get it moving freely just remove the retaining/cotter pin at the bottom and press out the pin that connects the E-brake cable to the drum. If you can do all of this with the spring in the way ok, but i needed to remove it (i like to have plenty of room
)
Before removing the brake line from the back of the drum you need to do one of two things. One is to use a clamp on the soft portion of the brake lines to prevent all of the fluid from running out. Now you can remove the brake line. Or you can remove the line from the drum and quickly plug the end with a GOLF TEE. (yes it works!)
Now would be a good time to go ahead and drain the gear oil from the rear diff
Now with that done you can focus on the 4 nuts on the back side of the rear drum that connect the axle housing to the backing plate. Remove these 4 nuts and set them aside. Sometimes the bolts will spin and force you to remove the rear drum so that you can get a wrench on the head of the bolt you are trying to get the nut off of. We were lucky and all 8 nuts (both sides of the zuk) came off without having to mess with removing the drum. Once you have those 4 nuts off attempt to pull the rear axle out of the housing. They are usually quite stubborn and require a hammer or slide hammer. What we did was reattach the rear wheel and use its leverage to wobble the axle loose. If that doesn't work get yourself a 3 lb sledge to knock it out from the inside. Be VERY carefully not to damage other components, oil may start to spill out so be carefull not to spill it all over the place.
Once the axle is loose just slide the axle and the drum out being careful not to booger up the axle seals. do the same thing to the other side of the Zuk.
Go ahead and and remove the driveshaft from the rear third member and place it to the side. There is no need to remove it from the t-case, just use a bungee to keep it up and out of your way. Now you will have remove the 3rd member from the axle housing. Take out the 8 bolts that hold it in and try to wiggle it out of the housing. If this does not break the seal, you can place a jack under the pinion flange and jack it up till the 3rd's seal breaks. Remove the jack and lift the 3rd out of the axle housing.
Now starts the really important stuff!! Make sure that you have a good CLEAN work space! (tailgate will suffice)
NOW!!! Before you remove one single bolt from the 3rd member you need to carefully check, recheck, and check again (10 more times) how much backlash (play) there is in your ring and pinion gear. Lay the 3rd member on its side. Now grab the flange where your driveshaft was mounted to. Slowly turning it back and forth you will feel a small click. When you do this you will see how much the flange turns back and forth while engaging the ring to the pinion gear. The movement should be very small. This is without a doubt the MOST IMPORTANT part of this install so make sure you pay attention to this! The movement should not be more than .008mm. If it is you have excessive play in your ring and pinion. Luckily mine was still in great condition and still had the factory settings. Yes I know you are supposed to use a dial indicator but if you follow the steps listed below you can reinstall the carrier to exactly where you took it out. Then your backlash will be the same as it was before disassembly!
First we need to start marking our pieces so we know where they came from. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT to put the pieces back in the exact same place as they came from! We used double markings on one side and single marking on the other side of the differential. This makes it a lot easier and keeps the parts from getting confused on which side they go on. After removing peices lay them out in the orderon the side that they came off of. This will assist putting the 3rd back together much easier.
Mark the carrier, bearing caps (round things with all the holes in them) and ring gear using a dremmel or a grinder with a small cut-off wheel. This works way better than a grease pencil or center punch.
Mark the bearing retainers, you can see here in this pic where we marked the carrier halves and the bearing retainers for position. These markings are a MUST!
We went ahead and marked the ring gear to the carrier so to put it back together exactly where it came off the carrier.
Remove the bearing retainer locks from both sides. These are the two tabs (one on each side of carrier) that will lock in your bearing retainers and prevent them from spinning.
now loosen the 4 large bolts (17mm) that are on the top of the carrier. (2 on each side of the carrier) Loosen, DO NOT REMOVE (both sides)
Unscrew the bearing retainers one side at a time COUNTING THE TURNS until the come out. Both sides are threaded the same. Righty tighty, lefty loosey. These are the items that correctly set your backlash when you reinstall the carrier into the third member. WRITE THE NUMBERS DOWN!! My drivers side was 5 1/4 turns and the passenger side was 5 3/4 turns until they came completely out
This is were the bearing retainer finally came out so we knew where to start to put it back in. This HAS to be done to both sides for proper adjustment when your spool has been installed.
Now you can go ahead and remove the four 17mm bolts from the top of the 3rd member. (both sides) Set them off to the proper sides for reinstallation.
Remove the bearing races from 3rd member on both sides (sorry blurry pic) Set them off to the proper sides for reinstallation.
After removal of both bearing races you can remove the carrier.
Now you can mark the placement of the carrier cap. Is this needed? I do not know but we aren't taking any chances!
Loosen the eight 12mm carrier cap bolts and remove the cap. Set it aside for reinstallation later.
This is a pic of the carrier cap removed. What you see sitting on the inside is one of the SIDE GEARS. This gear is the only difference between a front and rear Samurai 3rd member
Lift out the side gear and you will be able to see all of the spider gears on the inside of the carrier
here is a quick look a the inside of the 3rd once the carrier was removed. That big gear is the pinion gear.
Remove the ringgear bolts and remove the ring gear. You bay need to use a rubber mallet to carefully knock the ring gear from the carrier. Ours just slid right off. Removing the ring this will give you access to the pins inside of the carrier.
Now press on one of the long pin edges and press it through. Ours would only come out one way.
With the long pin out reach in side and press the short pins out
Reach inside and remove the spiders gears and the opposite side gear. DO NO FORGET THE SPIDER GEAR SPACERS! (4 curved washers)
WOW!! Now we have an empty carrier .
Now just drop in your spool (put some grease on the outsides)
Replace the long pin. It would only go in one way.
Now replace the short pins on both sides (sorry blurry pic)
Here is the carrier with the pins replaced.
This is what you should see on the inside when the pins are all replaced.
When reinsalling all of your components ensure that you clean all off all of the nasty stuff and apply copius amounts of loc-tite to prevent loosening bolts (BAD THING)
Time to reinstall everything!!
Bolt the ring gear back on as well as the carrier cap we took off (12 mm bolts) Use an inpact wrench if possible. These bolts need to be TIGHT!
Grab your bearing races and put them back on the bearings. Then set your carrier back into the third member and slide the ging gear into contact with the pinion gear. They should mesh together easily.
Take the two half round caps (17mm bolts) and bolt them back onto the 3rd member. Make these FINGER TIGHT and no more than that.
Grab your bearing retainers (round things with all the holes in them) and get ready to screw them into place ONE SIDE AT A TIME!
When you find yourself trying to place the bearing retainers back in, ensure that the 2 bolts on each side of the carrier retainer is not completely bolted on tight. Just finger tight. Now place your bearing retainer on marks and turn counter clockwise (loosen) till it falls back in place (where it came out of) and then turn the bearing retainer however many turns that it took to remove them in the beginning of the install. THIS IS THE ABSOLUTE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THIS REINSTALL!! Your marks should line up perfect. If not redo it until they do.
Once both side are done properly you can fully tighten down the carrier retainer bolts (17mm)
Don't forget the bearing retainer clip
as seen between the carrier retainer bolts
Once completed place a bead (no need for a weld) of RTV along the inside to place the 3rd back in the diff *let the RTV get tacky first.
Now just place the 3rd back in place (may need a strong arm to get this thing back in place) and just bolt in .
Now ready for the drive shaft bolt back on.
Now it is time to place the axles back in.
Applying a small bead to the axle housing where the axles will slide in will help prevent any other leakage from your axle.
insert axle ENSURING NOT TO BOOGER UP THE SEAL and play with it to completly set in to the spool (may need to turn (wiggle) the drive line so the axle will seat). apply a pressure to the rotor (hammer may be the trick)and the bolt on the rotor to the axle housing
once the axles have been replaced properly (the ebrakes and the brake lines meet up) take out your golf tee and place the brake line back in.
connect your ebrake system with the connecting pin, retainer and spring
once both axle are back in its time to full up the diff ***remember to put the diff plug back in. and just fill er up.
and last but not least BLEED THE BRAKES
now your ready to play
[neonnoodle] [popsicle] [red_s]
As with any project it is a good practice to remove the postitve cable from the battery. You never know when your child will jump in the zuk and turn the key!
It is also important to chalkblock the front tires to prevent the Zuk from moving on you while you are banging on the rear drums. Remember, safety first!!Lets get started!! Once your vehicle is blocked and up on jack stands you can get to work.
I needed to remove the tires just to make room to work around stuff or you may not need to
Next i needed to do a good bit of work on E-brake retaining pin. It was all rusted together and didn't want to come out. Once you get it moving freely just remove the retaining/cotter pin at the bottom and press out the pin that connects the E-brake cable to the drum. If you can do all of this with the spring in the way ok, but i needed to remove it (i like to have plenty of room
)
Before removing the brake line from the back of the drum you need to do one of two things. One is to use a clamp on the soft portion of the brake lines to prevent all of the fluid from running out. Now you can remove the brake line. Or you can remove the line from the drum and quickly plug the end with a GOLF TEE. (yes it works!)
Now would be a good time to go ahead and drain the gear oil from the rear diff
Now with that done you can focus on the 4 nuts on the back side of the rear drum that connect the axle housing to the backing plate. Remove these 4 nuts and set them aside. Sometimes the bolts will spin and force you to remove the rear drum so that you can get a wrench on the head of the bolt you are trying to get the nut off of. We were lucky and all 8 nuts (both sides of the zuk) came off without having to mess with removing the drum. Once you have those 4 nuts off attempt to pull the rear axle out of the housing. They are usually quite stubborn and require a hammer or slide hammer. What we did was reattach the rear wheel and use its leverage to wobble the axle loose. If that doesn't work get yourself a 3 lb sledge to knock it out from the inside. Be VERY carefully not to damage other components, oil may start to spill out so be carefull not to spill it all over the place.
Once the axle is loose just slide the axle and the drum out being careful not to booger up the axle seals. do the same thing to the other side of the Zuk.
Go ahead and and remove the driveshaft from the rear third member and place it to the side. There is no need to remove it from the t-case, just use a bungee to keep it up and out of your way. Now you will have remove the 3rd member from the axle housing. Take out the 8 bolts that hold it in and try to wiggle it out of the housing. If this does not break the seal, you can place a jack under the pinion flange and jack it up till the 3rd's seal breaks. Remove the jack and lift the 3rd out of the axle housing.
Now starts the really important stuff!! Make sure that you have a good CLEAN work space! (tailgate will suffice)
NOW!!! Before you remove one single bolt from the 3rd member you need to carefully check, recheck, and check again (10 more times) how much backlash (play) there is in your ring and pinion gear. Lay the 3rd member on its side. Now grab the flange where your driveshaft was mounted to. Slowly turning it back and forth you will feel a small click. When you do this you will see how much the flange turns back and forth while engaging the ring to the pinion gear. The movement should be very small. This is without a doubt the MOST IMPORTANT part of this install so make sure you pay attention to this! The movement should not be more than .008mm. If it is you have excessive play in your ring and pinion. Luckily mine was still in great condition and still had the factory settings. Yes I know you are supposed to use a dial indicator but if you follow the steps listed below you can reinstall the carrier to exactly where you took it out. Then your backlash will be the same as it was before disassembly!
First we need to start marking our pieces so we know where they came from. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT to put the pieces back in the exact same place as they came from! We used double markings on one side and single marking on the other side of the differential. This makes it a lot easier and keeps the parts from getting confused on which side they go on. After removing peices lay them out in the orderon the side that they came off of. This will assist putting the 3rd back together much easier.
Mark the carrier, bearing caps (round things with all the holes in them) and ring gear using a dremmel or a grinder with a small cut-off wheel. This works way better than a grease pencil or center punch.
Mark the bearing retainers, you can see here in this pic where we marked the carrier halves and the bearing retainers for position. These markings are a MUST!
We went ahead and marked the ring gear to the carrier so to put it back together exactly where it came off the carrier.
Remove the bearing retainer locks from both sides. These are the two tabs (one on each side of carrier) that will lock in your bearing retainers and prevent them from spinning.
now loosen the 4 large bolts (17mm) that are on the top of the carrier. (2 on each side of the carrier) Loosen, DO NOT REMOVE (both sides)
Unscrew the bearing retainers one side at a time COUNTING THE TURNS until the come out. Both sides are threaded the same. Righty tighty, lefty loosey. These are the items that correctly set your backlash when you reinstall the carrier into the third member. WRITE THE NUMBERS DOWN!! My drivers side was 5 1/4 turns and the passenger side was 5 3/4 turns until they came completely out
This is were the bearing retainer finally came out so we knew where to start to put it back in. This HAS to be done to both sides for proper adjustment when your spool has been installed.
Now you can go ahead and remove the four 17mm bolts from the top of the 3rd member. (both sides) Set them off to the proper sides for reinstallation.
Remove the bearing races from 3rd member on both sides (sorry blurry pic) Set them off to the proper sides for reinstallation.
After removal of both bearing races you can remove the carrier.
Now you can mark the placement of the carrier cap. Is this needed? I do not know but we aren't taking any chances!
Loosen the eight 12mm carrier cap bolts and remove the cap. Set it aside for reinstallation later.
This is a pic of the carrier cap removed. What you see sitting on the inside is one of the SIDE GEARS. This gear is the only difference between a front and rear Samurai 3rd member
Lift out the side gear and you will be able to see all of the spider gears on the inside of the carrier
here is a quick look a the inside of the 3rd once the carrier was removed. That big gear is the pinion gear.
Remove the ringgear bolts and remove the ring gear. You bay need to use a rubber mallet to carefully knock the ring gear from the carrier. Ours just slid right off. Removing the ring this will give you access to the pins inside of the carrier.
Now press on one of the long pin edges and press it through. Ours would only come out one way.
With the long pin out reach in side and press the short pins out
Reach inside and remove the spiders gears and the opposite side gear. DO NO FORGET THE SPIDER GEAR SPACERS! (4 curved washers)
WOW!! Now we have an empty carrier .
Now just drop in your spool (put some grease on the outsides)
Replace the long pin. It would only go in one way.
Now replace the short pins on both sides (sorry blurry pic)
Here is the carrier with the pins replaced.
This is what you should see on the inside when the pins are all replaced.
When reinsalling all of your components ensure that you clean all off all of the nasty stuff and apply copius amounts of loc-tite to prevent loosening bolts (BAD THING
) Time to reinstall everything!!
Bolt the ring gear back on as well as the carrier cap we took off (12 mm bolts) Use an inpact wrench if possible. These bolts need to be TIGHT!
Grab your bearing races and put them back on the bearings. Then set your carrier back into the third member and slide the ging gear into contact with the pinion gear. They should mesh together easily.
Take the two half round caps (17mm bolts) and bolt them back onto the 3rd member. Make these FINGER TIGHT and no more than that.
Grab your bearing retainers (round things with all the holes in them) and get ready to screw them into place ONE SIDE AT A TIME!
When you find yourself trying to place the bearing retainers back in, ensure that the 2 bolts on each side of the carrier retainer is not completely bolted on tight. Just finger tight. Now place your bearing retainer on marks and turn counter clockwise (loosen) till it falls back in place (where it came out of) and then turn the bearing retainer however many turns that it took to remove them in the beginning of the install. THIS IS THE ABSOLUTE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THIS REINSTALL!! Your marks should line up perfect. If not redo it until they do.
Once both side are done properly you can fully tighten down the carrier retainer bolts (17mm)
Don't forget the bearing retainer clip
as seen between the carrier retainer bolts
Once completed place a bead (no need for a weld
) of RTV along the inside to place the 3rd back in the diff *let the RTV get tacky first.Now just place the 3rd back in place (may need a strong arm to get this thing back in place) and just bolt in .
Now ready for the drive shaft bolt back on.
Now it is time to place the axles back in.
Applying a small bead to the axle housing where the axles will slide in will help prevent any other leakage from your axle.
insert axle ENSURING NOT TO BOOGER UP THE SEAL and play with it to completly set in to the spool (may need to turn (wiggle) the drive line so the axle will seat). apply a pressure to the rotor (hammer may be the trick)and the bolt on the rotor to the axle housing
once the axles have been replaced properly (the ebrakes and the brake lines meet up) take out your golf tee and place the brake line back in.
connect your ebrake system with the connecting pin, retainer and spring
once both axle are back in its time to full up the diff ***remember to put the diff plug back in
. and just fill er up. and last but not least BLEED THE BRAKES
now your ready to play
[neonnoodle] [popsicle] [red_s]
![[thumbsup]](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f44d.png "Thumbs up [thumbsup]")
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