The one good thing about Covid-19 and staying home a lot is getting projects done;
I finally swapped-out the factory open differential for the limited slip diff I purchased almost four years ago.
Have not done a test drive yet, Blazer still sitting on jackstands on the rear for my initial test. Since the limited slip was used, I am going to do a run test on jack stands before taking out on the road....just in case.

 

Initial test of limited-slip differential.....fail!
After about of minute of letting the rear spin, a bearing begin to sing. I stopped, put into reverse, let it spin and no noise after about a minute. Back into drive and once again, bearing begin to sing. I let it continue and got an ABS/Brake lites on. I think this means the ABS detected a difference between the left and right rotation.

Soooo....I get to take the limited-slip back out and replaced those carrier bearings.....which I thought about doing, but didn't.

Trouble is I do not have a press to put the bearing on, nor a puller to get them off. May just put the open-diff back in and forget about it.

Oh well....

 

Darn! Is it possible to get a parts rear end to rebuild? Then sell off your good axle after the swap?

currently doing this with a zr2 axle and front diff myself, minus the limited slip lol

 

No, no parts rear end really available. And having no luck in finding the right size carrier bearings. Finding bearings for 8.5", but not the 7.625" ring gear. So will probably have to put the open-diff back in for now; work on getting the bearings. Not really any big task in swapping diffs, but I do have to swap the ring gear....re-using the original one so that it matches the pinion gear.

 

Did you set up new to same exact backlash as the old?

You need AC Delco S13 bearings for a 7.625 ring gear carrier of 2002 vintage.

41.28mm ID x 73.42mm OD x 21.43mm thick

discontinued at GM as I understand it but you can get new ones on Ebay.

also known as Timken LM501349 - LM501314

 

Hey Les....I did not get the backlash exactly the same; I measured 0.0085 on the open-diff. The original configuration was only one cast shim on each side....had to pry the diff out it was so tight.
I tried to use the same shims, but just would not go in, so I reused the right side shim, then put in a stack which gave me a backlash of 0.009...which I thought was good.

According to some info I found, I thought the backlash range was 0.006 - 0.010....but that was for the older style 5-cut ring gear...which I believe I have the 2-cut ring gear so the backlash range is tighter at 0.003 - 0.006. Which makes my original measurement of 0.0085 to be out of spec....makes sense with 167k miles of wear.

Thank you for the bearing numbers.....have found them using those numbers.....

 

What's with the tone ring on the ring gear? My 04 4x4 non ZR2 with ABS doesn't have one. Does yours have drum rear brakes, maybe that's the difference, mine is disc?

Just curious.

 

The ABS light is probably just because the front wasn't turning. I wouldn't worry about that.

 

The tone ring is there because the limited slip came from an early 70's Camaro....which is when they had tone rings. The original open-diff did not have a tone ring either.
Do you have a lunchbox locker installed? Or is that an Eaton or something limited-slip? Sure does not look like a factory G80 unit.

Yeah I thought about the ABS lite coming on because the front was not turning after thinking about this again....the rear only has one sensor so it could not detect a difference between left and right.

 

Factory G80. Had the rear end apart to replace rusted out backing plates, and did the outer seals and a new diff cover to go along with it lol