8 3/4" sure-grip swap and rebuild questions

Lefty71 said

Agree with this 110 percent.. You can not get a feel for what you are doing (spreading the case) with a hammer and screwdriver. Even if it's homemade, it will be sweet. :p

I think you could get by without locktite, but why?? Along those lines, you can hold the gear pretty easily, since the bolts don't get torqued super tight anyway.... just be careful of what you are doing.

Click to expand...

Hold what exactly? 55 lb-ft is a decent amount, no way I could just bear-hug the diff and torque the bolts if that's what you mean? I'll go ahead and use some blue loctite on the ring gear bolts since I already have some and I guess it can't hurt. The sure-grip diff is already bolted together and torqued though without loctite and I'd much rather not take it apart again just to do that.

I had a hard time keeping the diff from wanting to rotate out of the vise jaws while torqueing the diff bolts and that was 45 lb-ft. I can't grab on to that flange with a vise again for doing the ring gear because... well that's where the ring gear goes lol.