Search the Community

I just started looking for a replacement pinion yoke and found the one pictured below in the 2ea pics which show the light surface rust on the journal. Initially I tried just having a speedi sleeve pressed on, and it would have been an good fix however the less than desirable narrow width of the sleeve left cause for how well and long it would work. if anyone out there has used or knows of a sleeve (maybe something other than the speedi brand, etc. ?) that is wider and covers more of the journal area I would appreciate the feedback. The speedi sleeve brand we tried was approx. 1/2 " wide so it needed to be driven on " just so far" on the journal to ride both seals (dust and oil), or it needed to be driven on again " just so far" if you wanted a little relief room and you positioned it so just the oil seal would ride on it, thinking that the front dust seal is more foregiving and can survive riding on the original surface. anyway- trying to drive the sleeve on to " just the right" position and then also trying to drive the new pinion seal in to "just the right " position so everything lined up as needed, just seemed a bit more difficult than practicle only offering up a 16th " or so for error...seems like a wider sleeve would solve all this, but again - it just might not be out there and available. Found this pinion yoke on ebay from a seller with a 100% rating who offers returns, listed as NOS. My experience over the last 5 yrs in ordering parts, (especially off ebay), is that if they say NOS, there's a better than 50 % chance that it's defective and that's why it was never used. Who knows why it was never discarded. Anyway - I wrote the fella and after a swapping messages, I went ahead and purchased it, knowing it could be returned. Sure enough it looks pretty pristine and has a cosmoline type grease still on the majority of the flange assembly. It also had a round cardboard sleeve impregnated with the stuff slipped over the yoke journal, however as ya can see in the pics a surface rust has just begun to attack the journals seal surface. I'm guessing if I took steel wool or some 2500 grit wet sand and started polishing it wouldn't take long to get it all gone. (Can't really feel the corrosion with your fingernail other than the slight drag you feel when you move from the shiny surface to the dull areas, if that makes sense My best guess would be that I could polish this out with no more than a thousandth (.001) reduction to the overall O.D. size of the journal,...but lets say I'm off on that, and it might have to go as far as 2 thousandths to clean up....any one out there got the experience to share some knowledge on how far a person could downsize this and still have good results, (also with the placement of a new pinion seal as well)...?? I can be pretty good at assuming, which most times isn't a good gamble...polishing out by hand - depending on how far you go, might cause a slight un-even O.D. ? which might shorten the life of this seal, ? etc...don't know, again doing a lot of assuming...thank you in advance to any and all forum members who take the time to shed a little knowledge my way on this. All responses encouraged and welcome. Thanks for the help and support. Steve