broken bolt in rear pinion yoke

[454ss]

you are correct with your findings, do not just impact it on. the pinion is set with the crush sleeve, so to avoid resetting the pinion up with a new sleeve, you can take the easy way out and just retighten the nut as close to where it was as you can. I always scribe the nut and pinion before removing it and put it back to that spot. make sure you have no in and out play by pulling and pushing the yoke when back together. by just impacting on there is a good chance of over tightening and crushing the sleeve past the proper setting which results in too much bearing preload and pulling the pinion out from the ring gear which throws the backlash/gear mesh out of spec. all of which will accelerate wear and usually cause a whine/hum noise mostly when not under load(coasting). so just take your time and be careful.

 

[great white]

Use heat on the frozen bolt.

Heat the yoke with a cherry tip quickly (no need to fry seals or then you're taking it off anyways) to shock it and spin it out with the easy out....smoke wrench works every time on a rusty bolt.

Yes, there is a torque setting on the pinion nut, yes it is for the crush sleeve (one time use by the way) and yes it does set the pinion depth which sets the backlash and gear engagement pattern....if it comes out and goes back in exactly as it was, you can usually get away with no issues....note I said usually.....