Like i said before I didn't want to get too stagnant, so I decided to pop open the cover on the 8.8 I got a while back and see how it looked and if it needed work.
In the first picture is the axle when i pulled it in to the garage from the side of the house to start working on it.
The second picture is when things get interesting...The pic doesn't do it justice but it looks brand new! No visible wear, the fluid is still somewhat clear and no metal in the bottom. Even the backlash was good. This unit looks like it either wasn't ever abused or they kept up on the maintenance. Heck the brake pads even had about 3/16" left on them. So as the saying goes, we'll let this dog lie...
The third pic is the inside of the differential cover after a little cleaning.
The fourth pic is after a put everything back together with new fluid and a new gasket. Had a bit of a scare on this one as I broke one of the bolts torquing it down! Must not have seated very well because I was able to get it back out pretty easy with the bolt remover...whew...after the trip to the hardware store to get the grade 8 replacement we were back in business. I decided to paint everything to get it looking presentable. I'll get the tube and the rest of the brake assembly as they get closer to done. I thought about polishing up the rotors and having them turned as they seemed pretty good but i decided to start from scratch and get both new rotors and pads from Brakes Performance. I ended getting a decent deal on a set of drilled and slotted rotors w/pads.
The fifth pic is an homage to my daughter who named the truck Charlotte. Her favorite color is red, so i decided to paint the shaped portion of the diff cover red....hmmm, its got a bit of black widow look to it and there was a famous spider named Charlotte...Of course this has nothing to do with why i did it, but it brings everything together
Time to start getting parts for the motor (yikes its gonna be pricey, but that's what you get when you want to retro a LSx). That and still looking for my suspension parts...
Stay Tuned!