OldIHC

I have the backplate off to clean it up for new brakes, I'm thinking now is a good time replace the 70 year old bearings. The axle wouldn't come out with a rented slide hammer, I didn't try heat, ( didn't think of that at the time). I have made a puller that I will hopefully have time to try this weekend. My manual covers nothing on shimming the new bearing end play. I found some videos on yutube for jeep axles, which look very similar. The axle I assume is an r1060, is there an ID on the housing somewhere to verify. I am getting impatient to do exhaustive searches on what I have. Is the ratio stamped on hsg, ? I could count revs on axle and driveshaft, but want to find stamp if it exists. More bearing q's to come.

A chalk mark on the tire and one on the drive shaft will give you a good ball park of what the axle ratio by counting the revoloutions of the shaft in one revoloution of the tire. If you pull the cover and count the teeth on the ring gear and divide them by the number of teeth on the pinion you will come up with exact ratio.

Most all axles have the tooth count stamped on the head of the pinion, so drop the drive shaft and look for a pair of numbers expressed like 10-41 which would be a 10 tooth pinion and a 41 tooth ring gear 4.11 ratio

So by removing the u joint it will be visible ?

the head of the pinion sticks out the front of the center section the U Joint flange is held on by a big nut on the end of the pinion, look at what the nut threads on to, there will be a bunch of numbers and marks etched or stamped into that area, look for numbers expressed like I did in my last post.

Thanks, I'll try to do that over the weekend.

Well , I decided to go with the chalk method, as I already have enough things disassembled on this project. I counted 4.1 turns on the driveshaft , to get 1 turn on the wheel. So I have 411 gears. That is a surprise to me because of a story that was handed down with the truck. 411 is a low gear ratio which contradicts a story my dad told me about when my grandfather purchased it in 1950.
I was told my grandfather ordered a high speed rearend so he could drive freeway speeds which his kb was incapable of. He told the ih dealer he would buy a ford, because it could do freeway speeds. The dealer said they could order high speed gears. So the story goes , the rearend was "high geared". But that definitely isn't the case. So it makes me wonder if the 3 speed transmission could be higher geared. I'm pretty sure it is the original rearend. Any thoughts ?
I should add that I was told the truck has done "high beam" on the speedometer by my grandfather. That is about 90 mph !

If only one wheel is up you have double it. My way eliminates any mess ups. Many have messed up the turn the shaft and count method.

The truck is on jack stands

It is unlikely that there is a “special” high-speed transmission in your truck to get freeway speeds from it. If you have a three speed tranny and no separate overdrive unit then the final transmission ratio in third gear is 1:1. Usually all of the gear changeability in pickups is accomplished in the rearend. 45 years ago, when my truck still had the original engine, rearend and 3speed tranny, it would do 65 on the freeway all day long. I never knew what the rearend ratio was, but assumed it was in the 4:11 ballpark. Please note that freeway speeds have risen over the years. The family lore may be true - at 55 mph!
These trucks were built at a time when the average freeway speed was 55 or 60. Most surface roads were 45, 50 or 55 mph. Since most trucks went to rural areas, they didn’t normally see higher highway speeds. And I fully understand that these statements are generalizations, and exceptions abound.