[Prowbar]

The first picture looks like the inside of a sewer pipe! But it turns out to be the axle tube! An enormous amount of crud and rust gathered in there over the years. Using rags and rods and lots of brake cleaner, the axle tubes were cleaned up. You can see how much rust gathered in the carrier housing in the next picture.

I made sure to clear out the vent on the right axle tube, I believe it was blocked due to the crud. Planning to go through the tubes one more time using a rotating wirewheel on a drill to break loose the last amounts of crud.

The housing or pumpkin wasn't much better. The thick black paste coated the bore. The best method was a rotating wirewheel mounted on a die grinder, which loosened up the crud and left a cast iron gray finish.

Lastly, the old bearings for the carrier were turned into setup bearings, and all the shim packages were measured and recorded. The old pinion-bearing cup OD was ground down as well to aid in pinion depth setup.

The old pinion did not have a press fit for the pinion bearing closest to the yoke, as it is clamped in place by the yoke and the shims. The new pinion does have a press fit there. To aid in setup, the press fit of the pinion will be turned into a sliding fit like the original.

Now the setup may begin.