Good afternoon everyone,

I went ahead and purchased a replacement yoke for my rear Dana 80, and a new pinion nut.

I dropped the driveshaft, somehow managed to break the pinion nut loose and tapped the old yoke off.

The new replacement yoke (Spicer P/N 3-4-11081-1X) fits on to the pinion shaft okay, but on the end which slides into the pinion shaft, there is some sort of circular sheath that the old yoke doesn't have. This "sheath" is so large that it looks like it might interfere with the pinion seal when the yoke is fully tightened. Any thoughts on this from those of you that have replaced the Dana 80 yoke recently? Do I need to replace the pinion seal with a newer model as well? :-(

Also, the new pinion nut is a good deal thicker than the old pinion nut (old one was a royal pain to remove), and it appears that the same 1 7/8" socket I used to remove the old pinion nut will not fit inside the new yoke. I heard that the newer Dana 80 yokes were redesigned or something and that they need a special "thin wall" socket. Does anyone know who sells this socket?

The truck is torn down in my driveway right now until I get these questions answered. The pinion shaft really flops around without the nut torqued down on it! I hope it doesn't mess up my ring and pinion backlash. I should've done my homework better before getting started!

Thanks for your help,

Ted