Can-O-Worms

I took my van up to a local shop this week to have the rear gear chunk swapped out since I don't have the garage space for that kind of job. I got a chunk off craigslist, guy said it came out of his running 'Cuda, no problems with it at all. He went to a taller gear for his big block, I'm going to a shorter gear for highway driving. The chunk was a '69 741 / 2.73, mine is a '65 741 / 3.55, he kept the yoke off his chunk but the pinion has the same splines so no biggy.

I give the shop guys the run down, reverse thread lug nuts, etc. and ask them to make sure they swap my yoke onto the new chunk and check it out before they tear the rear end down to do the job (so if it's bad I won't get hit with all the parts/labor and end up with my chunk still in). I specifically asked the old guy to baby sit the job if they were going to let the younger guys work on it.

I just got off the phone with them, they tore the thing all the way down, swapped the chunks and put it all back together before they swapped the yoke and checked it. The chunk wont turn with the yoke installed ... I don't know if its the crush sleeve / pinion bearings or what (the ring/pinion looked great and very clean), they are going to tear it back down tomorrow to take the chunk apart and see whats wrong with it and fix if possible.

I'm sure I'll get to argue over the added labor cost and that really really chaps my behind. To add insult to injury they called me mid week and we added new wheel bearings and seals to the fix because they were shot as well. My $175 job is up to $400 or so and counting. This is why I hate having other people work on my stuff...

They swapped the whole unit. When I took the new (used) chunk in i showed him the pinion was pretty loose in the case because the nut/yoke was off. I asked them to swap the yokes and make sure every thing moved freely before that started the chunk swap... they didnt listen.

I fully expect them to try and gig me for the extra labor, we'll see how it goes. It will be Monday before they get back to it and I'll be popping in around 10am to check up on them.

eta: what really burns me is they could have avoided all this with 30 minutes of prep time.

dont take any nonsense from these guys. make sure you get what you want man!! i eventually got so sick of this kind of garbage that i started working on my cars out in rain and snow. never had a garage till a couple months ago. on one car alone the mechanics shafted me 600 bucks for a water pump change!! turns out they had stripped two threaded holes in the block and damaged the carberator. i had one clown pour engine oil into my transmission, and another car of my dads was reassembled wrong so they carved an inch off the steering column fairings with an angle grinder. i think most of these guys are crackheads.

with a different yoke, even if it is the right yoke for the replacement carier it needs a new crush sleve as a minimum. And like you said it should have been assembled and tested on the bench before putting it into the housing.

M1d

m1dadio wrote:with a different yoke, even if it is the right yoke for the replacement carier it needs a new crush sleve as a minimum. And like you said it should have been assembled and tested on the bench before putting it into the housing.

M1d

Absolutely! I asked them to put a new crush sleeve in, swap the yoke over and test it on the bench, some people like to learn by their mistakes I guess. Both carriers are 741 type, just different ratios, it should have been a no brainer for them, we'll see on Monday.

everytime someone works on a car, truck ( no way they are to touch my van) i say it will be the last, had 2 front tires put on the chrysler and told them to align the frontend stupid mistake cause $400. turned into $700. after some parts were replaced and i can't tell the difference and on handling. i had new firehawk tires put on the van but told them to not mess with anything else.

welp, they didn't get to it yesterday, the mechanic was out today, I'll have to check with them tomorrow.... I'm going to have to mark these guys off the list.

just called, they still haven't gotten back to it.

ok, talked to the shop yesterday, it's an all around cluster.

The shop boss says he told the "mechanic" to clean, paint and bench test the chunk before the install.

The "mechanic" says the shop boss just told him to install the thing as-is and not to do anything to it before hand, even went so far as to say one of the other mechanics looked at it and figured something was wrong with it but they installed it anyway.

I'm going to call him first thing tomorrow morning and tell him to swap the chunks back and I'll pay him for the new axle bearings and we'll part ways. Boy this has been a headache, 2 weeks in the shop and nothing good to come out of it.

Sorry to hear it... your proposition will probably garner the efforts of the shop mgr to personally take care of you, making sure you're still happy with the service...

I hope so, they are a local family shop, I always try and use the family owned joints if at all possible just to keep my money local.

well, it's all over for those that have been following.

They were putting my original chunk back in and I lucked out on craigslist and got a 2.93 open chunk from a guy about 10 miles away. Dropped it off at the shop and they put it in for me, the "mechanic" had thrown my original 3.55 chunk in the scrap metal pile for some reason when I went to pick up the van so I had him dig it back out.

The 2.94 runs out well, just need to get my 185/60/14 tires replaced with 225/70/15 and it should be about as good as it can get. I ended up paying the agreed upon rate for the chunk swap plus the parts for new wheel bearings/seals... $400 out the door which is about what i figured.

did I miss something? Was there a core refund that they kept your old chunk? I'm shocked they were so quick to toss it. So do you have both chunks? You should rebuild the one, get a new ring and pinion for it to gear it how you want... learn a little for the next time... $400 hit still hurts, never mind the lost time. Glad it's done.

sasktrini wrote:did I miss something? Was there a core refund that they kept your old chunk? I'm shocked they were so quick to toss it. So do you have both chunks? You should rebuild the one, get a new ring and pinion for it to gear it how you want... learn a little for the next time... $400 hit still hurts, never mind the lost time. Glad it's done.

It's a convoluted story I know.

The "technician" tried to toss my OEM 3.55 chunk because he's an ignoramus and didn't know any better (who needs 45 year old parts anyway right?) The first 2.73 chunk I bought, that they were supposed to put in, needed some bench work done before installation to set the pinion depth as the previous owner of the chunk had removed the yoke and the pinion was loose in the case.

I told them to bench work the 2.73 chunk before they stripped the rear end and installed it, the tech failed to do so and installed the chunk without setting it up. After he did that they called me and said "the chunk is no good" (because the pinion depth wasn't set) and the ring/pinion weren't meeting up.

That left me with three options:
1)Get another chunk and just have them remove/replace the 2.73 with the new one.
2) Pay this guy by the hour to figure out how to setup a 8 3/4" Mopar chunk. I wasn't real excited about this one.
3) Have them swap the 2.73 back with my original 3.55, cut my losses and try again later. I wouldn't be paying because it was the techs fault for putting it in without setting it up.

I actually had to go with option 3, while they were stripping the rear end I called a guy I found on craigslist about ten miles from my house and he had a 2.94 chunk for $125. I ran over to his house, bought the 2.94 and took it to the shop and they swapped out the "bad" 2.73 with the 2.94.

I only paid for one chunk swap, the tech ate the cost on the first one they did in error and I paid them to replace the wheel bearings while they had it apart.

It was a gigantic hassle but I finally ended up with a 2.94 in the van, my original 3.55 in a 5 gallon bucket in the back of the van and a 2.73 spare that needs setting up. I only gave $25 for the 2.73 so no loss there.

On a side note, they were supposed to change the rear u-joint while they had it apart and didn't because they "couldn't find a part that fit".

lol!!! They removed two chunks, installed two chunks, new seals, and shattered your confidence in them, for the price of one complete job then... that's not too bad... A comedy of errors...

You can become a diff expert with all those parts. U-joint? Just pull your driveshaft and take it to a shop that specializes in them. Okay, they may not be able to find a compatible part number, but they have catalogs that they can match according to the cup size and yoke dimensions.