richard allison
New Member
recently i had to replace the spider gears in my 2004 xlt with 7.5 inch ring gear limited slip differential. after much research in forums and videos there seems to be a couple of details that are not addressed that baffles semi experienced schmucks such as myself. Most discussions and videos show and deal with an 8.8 open differential and it is said that the 7.5 is mostly the same. i would like to post what i learned here for others to find and perhaps others can add some points that i may have missed.
1 - in a 7.5 limited slip diff, the spider gear pin will not come out all the way as it is blocked by the ring gear.
the pin has a flat side to clear the ring gear but it only comes out enough to remove the c clips on
the axel rods.
2 - the limited slips axel rod gears will not come out of the space in the carrier. you must remove the
carrier and remove the ring gear in order to remove the axel gears
3 - a new s spring is slightly larger than the original. the slip clutches are also a different size. the clutch
kit comes with a set of shim pairs of different sizes and instructions on how to choose a proper size
using some fancy pants tool that i did not have. i just kept reassembling using each set of shims until
i got to a size that would not let me assemble the spider gears as easily as they should, then i went back
one size.
1 - in a 7.5 limited slip diff, the spider gear pin will not come out all the way as it is blocked by the ring gear.
the pin has a flat side to clear the ring gear but it only comes out enough to remove the c clips on
the axel rods.
2 - the limited slips axel rod gears will not come out of the space in the carrier. you must remove the
carrier and remove the ring gear in order to remove the axel gears
3 - a new s spring is slightly larger than the original. the slip clutches are also a different size. the clutch
kit comes with a set of shim pairs of different sizes and instructions on how to choose a proper size
using some fancy pants tool that i did not have. i just kept reassembling using each set of shims until
i got to a size that would not let me assemble the spider gears as easily as they should, then i went back
one size.