How to Replace Rear Differential Pinion Flange 2000-08 GMC Yukon

Take the center cap off, just use a straight blade screwdriver. Use a 22-millimeter socket, take the lug nuts off. Take the wheel off.

Now I just need to take the caliper with the bracket off altogether, I'm not gonna take it off separately. Use an 18-millimeter socket and remove the bracket bolts and slide the caliper off. Now I'll just use a brake caliper hanger, just hang it just like that, just make sure there's no tension on the brake hose. And then take the rotor and slide it off. And if it's stuck on there pretty good, then you can use a hammer and just hit in these areas. Make sure the parking brake is not on. And then I'm gonna do the same for the other side.

I'm gonna take these two bolts out and then the two on the other side. I'm just gonna use a pry bar just to prevent it from spinning. Use an 11-millimeter wrench, loosen these up. And loosen those up. Take those caps off. And same on the other side. Now take a pry bar, get underneath here and just pry the driveshaft forward. Just like that. You might have to work it back and forth a little bit if it's rusted. Just be careful to not have these caps pop off. If you want, you can take some electrical tape and just tape the caps on there. These are okay. I'll just slide the drive shaft out of the way. You might get a little fluid out of the transfer case.

All right. So, what you wanna do before you take this off, and before you take the nut off, is just feel how the rotating torque feels. Because when you put this back together, you're gonna want it to feel the same way. If not, maybe just a little bit tighter. That's why you have the rotors off so that there's no drag from the rotors or from the wheels. What you're supposed to do is take a socket, a 1-1/4 socket, and then, if you have a torque wrench that has a dial on it, then you can check the rotating torque and see what it is. If you don't, do the best you can with what you got.

All right, so, a little bit looser than that. So, about 20-inch pounds with this torque wrench. But you really want a dial torque wrench to do it properly. Now take a 1-1/4-inch socket and remove the nuts. Be careful. Use a magnet; just remove this washer. Now we're gonna use a two-jaw puller and remove this. They do make special pullers for these, but you can use what you can. Use what you got. I just put the bolts back in so it can pry on the bolts and not the puller. And just tighten this up.

It's a good idea to have a drain bucket underneath, just in case some fluid comes out when you get this off.

All right, slide that off. All right, there's different seal pullers you can use. You can try a seal puller like this. A lot of times though, when you use a seal puller like this, it'll rip the seal. It doesn't really help too much. See, just ripped the seal.

Now I'm gonna take a pry bar, or you can use a straight blade screwdriver and just a hammer, just try to get under the seal. Now you can try using the seal puller again. There we go. And pull the seal right out. Just wipe this out with a rag. If there's excessive rust in here, you can use a little bit of sandpaper or emery cloth, but you don't want any of that getting into the bearings right there.

All right, now take the seal. And you can use a seal installer, if you have one. If you don't, use something you can find that is gonna seat on the outside of the seal. This just happens to be an old bearing for another vehicle. Just slide that over, make sure that's lined up. Just take a block of wood and give it a tap. Tap it in there. Looks good, just wipe the seal down.

With the new yoke, you're gonna wanna take some Teflon pipe sealer and just put it on the threads on the inside here. And that's just gonna seal the fluid from the inside so it doesn't come out the yoke itself.

I'm gonna take the yoke and slide it in position. And just take a rubber mallet, give it a couple taps. Try to be even with it. And take the new washer and the new nut, get that started.

All right, so, we're gonna go tighten this up. We need to be careful, you don't wanna overtighten it, you don't wanna tighten it to the point where this won't move, the pinion won't move. So, just be careful, just keep checking it. We wanna get back to where it was when we took it apart. All right, so, once you get close, you're gonna want to check it. Let's see...it's still not where I was before. So, keep tightening it. It is a good idea, once you get close, start tightening it by hand, not using the gun. Just put a couple bolts in there, use a pry bar. I think you can get a good feel for when it actually bottoms out.

All right, gonna give it a check. Maybe just a little bit more. You want it to be almost 5 inch-pounds more than when you took it apart. All right, that's perfect. And you don't wanna loosen it up, so, make sure you don't...you're better off just tightening a little bit at a time. And we're good.

All right, so, that's exactly how we want it to be. I can take these bolts out and we can put the driveshaft back in. Slide the driveshaft back into the transfer case and line it up back here. All right, now put these caps back on and the bolts. And take your 11-millimeter socket, your pry bar, and just snug these down. And then we're gonna torque them. Make sure the U-joint is tightened all the way down and there's no air gaps in there. Now we're gonna tighten these down to 18 foot-pounds.

All right, now we wanna top off the rear differential. Everything's sealed up. You could do this when you're done done or you could do it right now. Pull out the fill plug. Check your owner's manual and use the appropriate rear-differential fluid. All right, and that's full. You want it to trickle out a little bit. And you can be within 10 millimeters from the fill plug. So, as long as the fluid's right in that section right there, then you'll be good.

And take the fill plug, put the fill plug back in. You can put a little pipe sealer on that if you want. And snug this up. It's good. Take the rotor, put the rotor back on. Take the caliper, take the hanger off the caliper, and just line it up over the rotor. Take the caliper bolt, you can put some thread-locking compound on those threads.

Now I'm gonna torque these bolts to 120 foot-pounds. Then I'm gonna do the same on the other side. Reinstall the wheel, put the lug nuts on. Now I'm gonna torque these lug nuts to 140 foot-pounds, in a star pattern, to tighten the wheel down evenly. And just go around again, double-check. And reinstall the center cap.