I noticed that when I removed my Strange Dana S60 and set the pinon on the bench, the old front pinion bearing slid on and off the shaft easily. I'm talking about the smaller HM88542 bearing. It appears as if Strange Engineering reduced the diameter of the pinion shaft when they built the rear end. Similar to making a "setup bearing" for checking clearances, but instead of reducing the ID of the bearing, they reduce the OD of the shaft and just kept it like that. Never had any problems with it. Fast forward to yesterday. I wanted to change from 4.10's to 3:73 gears, so when I installed my new ring and pinion, I took my new HM88542 bearing and honed the ID of it 2 thou to make it easily removable off the pinion, to make setting up the clearances easier. Essentially I made a "setup bearing". I decided to use this same modified new bearing for final assembly, since when Strange makes the rear ends, the bearing is a slip fit on those also.
I just watched a video where someone didn't use their new "setup bearing" for final assembly, and instead drove in yet another new, but unmodified HM88542 onto the pinon for final assembly. Does it matter if this bearing is slip fit or not during final assembly? Certainly, the larger bearing HM803146 needs to be pressed on, but what about the smaller HM88542 when changing rear end gears with the rear end still in the car? After you torque the nut down to 250 ft lbs, am I correct in that it doesn't matter if the front HM88542 is not press fitted/pound onto the pinion using a driver, and that it's ok to use a new bearing that slips over the shaft without the need to press it/pound it on (as a result of having previously reduced the ID as described above?) Maybe it needs to be on an OEM Dana 60, but I can tell you on the Strange Dana S60, the bearing had plenty of play on the shaft since they had reduced the shaft OD.
I just watched a video where someone didn't use their new "setup bearing" for final assembly, and instead drove in yet another new, but unmodified HM88542 onto the pinon for final assembly. Does it matter if this bearing is slip fit or not during final assembly? Certainly, the larger bearing HM803146 needs to be pressed on, but what about the smaller HM88542 when changing rear end gears with the rear end still in the car? After you torque the nut down to 250 ft lbs, am I correct in that it doesn't matter if the front HM88542 is not press fitted/pound onto the pinion using a driver, and that it's ok to use a new bearing that slips over the shaft without the need to press it/pound it on (as a result of having previously reduced the ID as described above?) Maybe it needs to be on an OEM Dana 60, but I can tell you on the Strange Dana S60, the bearing had plenty of play on the shaft since they had reduced the shaft OD.
