Long story short I opened the rear, D35, to find out what a noise was and it turned out to be a bad u-joint. There's been a slight hum since and lately its gotten louder. I opened the rear tonight. The gear pattern looks ok far as I can tell. And the back lash is .009. So I'm lost here. I'm wondering if the noise could be from the axle bearing? How would I check them?

I took two pics of the drive pattern.

 

Help me out here!

 

If the sound is a growling hum then I would definitely say it would be a carrier bearing. Remove the bearing caps and pull the axles out to allow you to remove the carrier. Be careful when pulling it out because you will need to pop it out and on either side of it are the shims... you will need to keep them for each side and separate. When you look at the separate sides you will be able to see if the races have marks and bumps. The bumps and marks what would be causing the whining howling noise. The bearing caps are torqued to 80 ft lb's. The only thing you should want to rent/ borrow from a parts store is the differential spreader if they have one. Makes re installing it easier. Just be careful to keep everything separate and clean.
Changing the bearings will require a hydraulic press to pull them off and push them on.

Or just take it to a shop is you don't feel comfortable doing it. If not then the parts store should have a shim kit available to order or purchase. You will want a vernier gauge ( caliper ) to find out which shim is what size.

* the shims go on the outside of the bearings between the races and the diff housing.

 

Thanks for the help. I pulled the diff before and everything looked good. I'll admit it's possible I mixed the shims up. But as I said I check and everything looks good. I was wondering how the gear pattern looks. I've looked around online and I can't make head or tails of the gear pattern. My seems pretty good but I really don't know.

 

The pattern looks good from the pictures. You want the contact to be an oval in the center of the gear and to nearly fill the whole gear.

 

See if the new u-joint is binding.

 

Don't Dana axles have the shims between the carrier bearing and carrier? Or is the Dana 35 different?

 

That was the issue the first time. I pulled it all apart, left the u joint for last, when I took off the straps it fell apart had zero play though. I'll double check that before I tear everything else down.

 

Btw what's the backlash on a D35 suppose to be?

 

if I remember right fresh gears should be 5-8 thousandths and used should be no more than 8-12 thousandths...

 

if I'm reading this right then your talking about d30... d35 have them between the differential housing and the bearing races. Not on the carrier itself.

 

I never worked on a Dana 35 but I know a Dana 30, 50, and 60 has the shims between the carrier bearings and carrier, I figured that all Dana Axles where that way. Most Ford axles have the shims between the carrier bearings and housing so I guess the Dana 35 is the same. Is this the only dana axle that is like this?

 

that I don't know...sorry....I'll look that up when I'm not at work.