Center Section

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Rear Axle Assembly

1. Center Section 2. Axle Housing 3. Axle Shafts

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Inside curves are the worst

Date: 04/14/2007 Views: 160

Center Section

The "center section" is a cast piece of [usually] iron, which holds the pinion, ring gear, and differential. It can be removed as a unit, which means gear ratios can be changed by swapping center sections. This saves time, as properly adjusting and shimming a gear set is a highly precise job worth doing carefully.

Not all types of rear ends work this way. Some have all this built into the axle housing, which opens from the rear to allow access to the gears and differential.

Date: 01/26/2006 Owner: Chris Robison Size: 3 items

Business end

From this end you can see the ring gear and the differential sitting inside it...

Date: 01/15/2006 Owner: Chris Robison Views: 232

Different light

I couldn't decide which of these shots I liked better, so I kept them both. The yellow "paint" is actually an alignment marking pigment, used to adjust the ring and pinion mesh...

Date: 01/15/2006 Owner: Chris Robison Views: 219

The yoke end

This is the end you see from the front once everything's assembled...

Date: 01/15/2006 Owner: Chris Robison Views: 229