TOY: Differential anyone? -- Cone Washer suggestion.

["Payne, Mike K." <MPayne1@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

First, so you don't have to read my ramblings to get to my actual
question...

Does anyone have a stock 4.11 Differential for the front?  If I remember
right from what Scott said it is an 8".  If you have one and are willing to
part with it I may be interested.  I am not positive it is 4.11 yet, I am
just getting the word out now so that I have the ball rolling so to speak.
I believe a rear will work in some cases at least with the ring and pinion
themselves but I am not positive on the years.  It would be going on an '85
Pickup.

...now if you are into reading senseless rambling please continue...

Just wanted to let everyone know that I got through the knuckle rebuild.
The truck steers better and coasts better as a result (new bearings are
great).  My inner bearing on the drivers side had some serious pitting and
the king pin bearings on both sides were pretty much shot.

As a suggestion: I have another, slightly extreme, method of removing cone
washers for the steering arm.  I had one on the drivers side that would NOT
come off no matter how much profanity I yelled at it or in what language I
used.  I tried every prescribed method and some not so conventional ones.
The next day I decided to get nasty.  I took the 'arms' off of a gear puller
so all I had was the bolt and the star-thingy that holds the arms.  I put
the bolt through the bearing at the bottom of the knuckle (perfect fit btw)
and then threaded it through the star-thingy inside the knuckle cavity.  I
put the pointy end of the bolt against the bottom of the king-pin and
proceeded to make the thing literally groan with tension.  When I couldn't
even turn the puller bolt anymore, I gave it the prescribed whack on the
stud with a brass drift and a 5 lb hammer.  That cone washer (and steering
arm incidentally) came flying out of there like it had no other ambition in
life than to be removed from that stud.  I understand there are some implied
dangers here, with putting the kind of force I was on the various
components, but I was entirely too irate to care.  The star-thingy that
holds the arms was technically resting on the OLD axle shaft seal and a 24mm
socket the was laid down sideways on the outside of the knuckle.  I wish I
would have taken a picture.

I also replaced the t-case because this did not alleviate my problem.  Well
all that accomplished was making it so it no longer slipped out of 4 lo...
so it wasn't an entire waste of time.  It still did not fix my problem.

I am now checking into various 'drive-train' shops like AAMCO to get
estimates on rebuilding, replacing, diagnosing, etc... the differential.  As
I can not think of any other culprit... 

I am getting advice from Scott as I go and he has been a great help.  
Roger Browns' write up was a HUGE help... and there is an AISIN hub write up
out there that I used as well to get the pawl setup right.  
Not to mention the help I got from this list - you guys made a big
difference... I cringe just thinking of how much this would have cost me at
a dealer...  thanks for the encouragement.