8.75 axle with yukon axles and green bearings

[Hawkeye]

  I'm looking for some input on my setup.  I have a 8.75 rear end set up for my 71 dart. I have the Yukon axles with the moser green bearings.  I was assembling them today and stopped at putting the axles in the housing.  THe concern I have is the only thing keeping these axles in the axle tube is the snap ring around the outside of the bearing.  The bearing retainer goes around the bearing and up against the snap ring holding it tight in the housing.  To me this doesn't look like it will provide enough pressure to hold up against any significant side pressure.  I plan on using this car as a street car with the normal cornering thats involved driving on the street.  I was thinking on modifying the bearing retainer by machining a collar and welding  it to the existing retainer to fit up against the outer race of the bearing.  This would be a stronger anchor on the bearing as long as the balls in the bearing are strong enough to withstand side pressure.  Any other ideas are welcome?
Thanks for any input, Wes.

[73swinger]

I can't help you with the assembly, I bought mine already together. I have had Yukons with green brearing running in my car for 2 years no probs. I don't know about modifying the retainers, If it ain't broke why fix it?

[68_Val_Sedan]

I have about 50k miles on a car that I sold to a friend with that setup and never had any issues ...

[Hawkeye]

  Its good to hear that you are getting a lot of trouble free miles out of the greens.  When I started to assemble them and saw the only thing holding the axle in the housing was that retainer up against that little snap ring around the outside of the bearing, well, I just thought that looks like a really weak achor point.  I'm still going to fabricate a ring to go over the outside race of the bearing just for peace of mind.
Wes

[MoPar_or _NoCar]

I've never had issues but that same thought has crossed my mind more than once. Take some pics please. 

[Winter]

     The snap ring design is for disc brakes and they will trap the axles with the rotor. Other wise use the older RP400 greens for drum or non parking brake discs. Stock axle bearings are the safest.

[BrianT]

I just bought these axles from Cass (Dr. Diff) last week.  I told him I was going to run 11" drum brakes and he sent me the same ones being described above.  Retaining plate holding a snap ring in. 

Here's a similar thread in the Engine section...

http://www.bigblockdart.com/index.php/topic,31864.0/topicseen.html

[Hawkeye]

BrianT
Ya same thing with me, told the guy I bought the rear end from that I was going to run 11 drums and these are the bearings he sent with the axle.  Its not like he misunderstood my intentions to use drum brakes because he sent the backing plates also.  Also when you put the backing plate on the housing then slide the axle it thru it is an even looser fit because the backing plate doesn't fit the outside of the bearing as well as the retainer does.  When all of this is assembled you have to watch the axle depth so the drum sits over the brake shoes correctly also.  This is going to be interesting figuring this out.
Wes

Winter
Where might I be able to get the RP400 bearings from?
Wes

[Hawkeye]

  Hey fellas here are some pictures of the bearing retainers I made.  They go over the retainers that came with the bearings and go over the the outer race of the bearing to give a little extra holding power and a lot of piece of mind.
Wes

[MoPar_or _NoCar]

Nice work, what's the ID and do you need longer studs?

[Hawkeye]

Mopar or nocar
  The inside diameter id is 2.5 inchs and longer studs would be nice, they thread out to the end of the nuts.  I got lock tight on them and don't think there going to back off.  If you look closely you will see that I had to machine off about about 60 thousanths of an inch and  in about  3/16" in so it fits flush over the outer race.   I could have welded them to the other retainers and counter suck the plate so the nuts would have set down in them but that would have required pressing the bearing off and that usually destroys the bearing.  I just used a metal hole saw to cut the inside out.  I think this is going to work out just fine.
Wes

[gt]

So does the inner plate ride up against the snap ring and the outer plate against the bearing? That's how I am seeing it.
Would like to see the install. Is there any clearance issues?

gt

[Hawkeye]

GT
Yep thats exactly how it bolts up, the first one goes over the bearing and up against the snap ring and the outer one that I made goes over the outer race of the bearing.  There shouldn't be any clearence problems as it only sticks out about an extra 1/8 of an inch.  I think this will provide a little more holding force on the side.  THe way I made them there isn't any preload on the outside of the bearing just more side support.
Wes

[gt]

Have you considered producing these if others wanted them? Maybe a thicker single piece that does both jobs.

gt

[Hawkeye]

Gt
  A thicker single piece would work and I thought of that at the time I just didn't want to press the bearing and inside retainer off to do it.  A lot of the time the bearing and inside retainer gets destroyed.  If the bearings are not on then I would definately go with a single thicker piece.  I don't if I would want to take on making them to sell or not, I don't know what the liability would be if one failed and then there is the time factor.  I don't know I'll have to give it some thought.
Wes

[Winter]

Hawkeye, I got them from Jeg's years ago and they are still in the box. If you go to Willwoods site you can download all the inst. for everything they made. In those inst. sheets you will see the difference between the RP 400 usage and the snap ring type. The non park brakes use them. But your new retainers look just as strong because the RP's flanges are only crimped on. The key to real stability will involve the discs trapped in the calipers. Drums are good with the stock bearings (IMO).

[Hawkeye]

Winter
  I will check out that web site, thanks for the info.
Wes

[mshred]

so would the RP400 green bearings for drums and discs without parking brakes work fine on these axles, or would you still need to make the retainers?

[Dave_n_68_383S]

Nice looking piece.. I thought the same thing when I saw the retainer... I have disks so didnt really worry about it but the weak retainer did give me an uneasy feeling..

[Winter]

     I was thinking that the weakness of the Green bearing is internal. They are not tapered like the stock so there is a possibility for the balls to slip past the channel they run in, but then again if you have discs there is no way they can fly out, like on my old High school 1959 Impala Convertible. We were loaded up with 6 people and I pitched the car into the turn under the RR tracks and the axle and tire hit the inside rear fender. In that case the stock pressed retaining collar slipped.

[jaydirt]

One place to buy the green bearings is mayo-performance.com.  We have a dart that we have started to restore.  Maybe I'll put up some pics when we finish.