I replaced the bearings, but the axles won't go in far enough to put gears and c clamps back on them. They won't go in any farther than in these two pictures. What am I doing wrong?

 

Hit it with a bigger hammer.

 

Since it is open and free, then it would be easy to finger the side in the differential for clearance while pulling the hub inward. It might just be slightly resting because of gravity.
I wouldn't immediately go with swinging a large force. Alternatively, place downward pressure on a lug stud with a foot while striking the hub center. That would be a similar effect as above with extra force and a jarring that might assist clearance.

 

I guess what I don't understand is that the axles came out REALLY easily. No tools required at all. Just push the axles in a little, to get the pressure off those c-clamps. So it doesn't make sense to me that putting them back in should take some kind of force that removing them didn't. I understood needing to use a hammer to put the new bearings in, because i had to use a slide hammer to pull the old ones out.

But I remember unscrewing the 8mm bolt and I don't see what for anymore, and a few things sorta rattled and fell out while I was working on the conversion. Maybe I'm missing something?

 

It looks like the gears in the centre have all fallen out. I'm not sure if you cant just throw them back together or not.

 

Yeah, that's exactly what happened. They ffel out when I removed the pin and rotated the axle to do some metal cutting.

Is there some special order I need to reinstall them?

 

As far as I know they should be kept in the same order they were as they've meshed that way since factory but that isn't an option. These may be fine to throw in in any order but I have very limited experience with differentials so can't say for definite.

I do know from my go-karts diff that it can be tricky to mesh them correctly but on a larger scale it may go easily.

 

The spider gears dont care which side they ride on. Not sure why the axles won't slide thru.

 

That axle isn't a pressure fit like a floating axle, but maybe there is still a bit of flare toward the hub which could be difficult to install new???
Also, those seals have metal in them if the size is wrong, then it would be difficult to insert in a smaller internal diameter.

Did you replace the inside and outside seals?

 

wrong bearings or seals be my guess

 

They went in with a little pressure. After reading here, I used a rubber mallet, and with a few love taps it went in. Interesting, I dropped the gears, and put them in a tooth too far once, so they didn't line up. I had to slide the axle shafts back out to fix, and the second time and third time were much easier.

Sorry to bug everyone with it. It's just that all of this is the first time I'm doing stuff, and hammering when I should is great, hammering when I shouldn't can cost me hundreds of dollars.

 

No worry. My first guess would have been the 5 lb rubber hammer as was suggested.

 

Ha, I used the 4lb bright orange harbor freight special.

 

Hey listen, everybody's picking up some tips!

Just today, when I went to loosen my rear universal joint bolts I brought the propane torch along. After melting that Loctite blue those bolts came out with a 1/4" drive rachet.

I was thinking about cha!

(PS - Don't tell Pat, but when I pulled the front bolts I noticed I had used anti-seize. Blaspheme!)

 

Even if you were bugging everybody (which you're not), the information found here may help others in the future who come across this thread who may be in the same position as you. Also, glad to hear that it's all going back together now. Not that there should be a next time for a while but when I did my rear bearings, I only pulled one half shaft out then reinserted the pin into the diff gears to hold everything together and did not turn the other shaft. Hindsight is great.