150 ft-lbs was off the top of my head, and therefore most likely wrong...

It's my understanding that properly installing a "crush sleeve eliminator" requires careful measurement with an in-lb torque wrench, which to me would necessitate the pinion being vertical, and therefore the axle out of the vehicle, so that the tool doesn't affect the measurement. Plus more room to swing the tool around. Certainly plenty of benefits to a "crush sleeve eliminator" if done properly. Ebay shows a couple kits for the 8.25, but I haven't gone any further to see what else is out there.

 

Id assume you can trial and error get it same as a crush sleeve. Your setting the rotating resistance to like 12inch lbs. Doesnt much matter what the nuts tourged to if you have this rotating . Verify all specs you need to hit and learn what your doing.

Tourquing a crush sleeve without checking rotating resistance would be wrong in my opion. Id work my way up to rotating spec since you can not uncrush a crush sleeve.

Tripple check pinion races are all fully seated before all this happens. Ask me why i know this.

With a crush sleeve eliminator its going to do the same but will set it with shims. Again pinion nut tourqe wouldnt be super critical. Since youl have the same rotating resistance at 150lb nut tourque and 300.

What the crush sleeve is to fill this gap easily and quickly same as the shims.
Shims are better because crush sleeves can be crushed more during high load situations then the **** goes all out of wack.

Shims cant be crushed under load

Theres alot to know setting up gears. My first 8.25 gear set turned into chunks of molten metal. I did suck it up and now have thousands of miles on my 2nd attempt

I did regear my axles with them in my rig still.
strapping the axle on a bench would save tons of crawling around bumping my head.

Good luck have fun with it and dont be afraid to fail learning from those failures. Failing is only truly a fail if you learn nothing from it giving up.

 

What happened with your pinion races?

 

Started the regear.. have a look, tell me what you all think

https://www.cherokeeforum.com/f67/wh...tterns-272515/

 

They seated after a few miles and gears melted into molten metal

 

Man that's rough. I had to ask because it looked like my inner race wasn't seat fully at the bottom. I could stick a feeler gauge between the race and housing, but not at the top. I knocked out the race and it turns out the housing has a small bevel that leads towards the bottom. So it was seated fully at first but I just had to make sure...

 

So I was wondering about driving with 2 different gear ratios. I figured it would break in the 8.25 before swapping the dana 30 gears. That way if I hear any unfamiliar noises I can probably isolate it to the 8.25.

That being said Ive read in 2WD (with front DS disconnected) you can drive fine with 2 different gear ratios. Is this true? It's difficult to believe since the dana 30 ring gear and pinion are still rotating even in 2WD. I have a lunchbox locker in the dana 30 idk if that matters.

 

Sure, you can drive with different ratios front/rear with the driveshaft disconnected. Let the front rotate. It won't be connected to anything. You probably would be fine with the DS as long as you stayed in 2WD, but I wouldn't risk that.