How To: Rearend Replacement

[Delmustator]

Step 1 - Place your truck on jack stands (3 tons or better rated) at the front leafspring mounting point. Remove tires and set aside.

Step 2 - Disconnect rear shocks. Using short bungie cords, compress them up and out of the way.

Step 3 - Disconnect hydralic brake line and remove retaining clip to release the rubber brake line. Disconnect the brake line vent hose.

Step 4 - Disconnect electronic sensor from rearend housing.

Step 5 - Remove the driver side front leafspring mounting nut. Release the emergency brake line bracket to provide some slack to the cable brake lines. Unbolt the brake cable bracket from the frame (small wire bracket).

Move to the drivers door, under the truck is a mounting bracket for the emergency brake cable, crimp the metal tongs with a pair of needle nose pliers and pull the cable clear of the bracket.

Now prepare yourself for about 1 hour of profanity and rage as you work to disconnect the emergency cable from a small metal connector that connects the (2) cables together. This piece of metal is very proficient at keeping the cables connected. You will waste valuable time messing with this motherf!!!!!, POS, connector. When disconnected, proceed to Step 6.

Step 6 - Go drink a beer and take a 15 minute break.

Step 7 - Guzzle another beer for good measure, your disconnecting the drive shaft this time and the bolts are a biaotch as well. These little sweeties take a 12mm 6-point wrench or socket and have thread locker applied from the factory. I swear that the things were torqued to 200 ft lbs or better. I bent a no name 12mm wrench in the first attempt.

Step 8 - Please a dollie or creeper or something under the rearend to support it from dropping to the ground. Rearends in F150s weigh a ton and are tough to handle unless you plan ahead.

Step 9 - Unbolt the U-bolts connecting the rearend to the leafsprings. The rearend should drop onto your dollie and you can roll it out of the way.

Installing the replacement rearend goes much easier. Just follow the steps in reverse and your good. You may have to use a small floor jack to jack the rearend up so that you can bolt up the U-bolts to the leafsprings. Took me about 30 minutes to reconnect everything.

Total time = 4 hours (with no help), 2 hours with help.

Be sure to go back and check the drive shaft bolts and U-bolts after 100 miles.

-Del

[Harley#356]

haha the DS bolts can be a PITA. i think they just rust up. we dropped my DS when we put my exhaust on about 2 years ago, and i couldnt get it off by hand when i dropped the DS to remove my 4R70W 2 months ago. impact gun baby

were your DS bolts 6 point though? i thought mine were 12 point. maybe not though, i just remember one set of bolts for something were 12 point which i thought was pretty odd

[Delmustator]

Yeah, they were 12 point. I was thinking of a regular bolt.

I used (2) wrenches at once to get better leverage..

-Del