Gosh, this is my favorite subject. I always feel obligated to comment.
According to many here, simply owning a cone type sure grip may be the worst thing you could do in life. Any of you nay sayers care to tell me how or why this thing works (which is the same principal as the clutch of course)?
I never had trouble myself, but from what I hear here, my car has no value because of it (I might add my splines don't line up on my steering shaft either).
You can grind some off the cones as stated, and if you wish, get the pre-load back by adding a big diameter washer in there about the thickness you take off.
If you are worried about the metal, put a magnet on the housing somewhere at the bottom. Chrysler never worried about it and they warranted them for 50K miles. I have never seen an excess of metal in the oil even after one of these was wore out. Must go somewhere though.
This unit also has much bigger sypder gears than the clutch type, which are prone to breakage in the clutch type, but nobody ever mentions that.
Have fun, don't believe every thing you hear here.
If the cone was our only option, we'd run it. THANKFULLY it's not. I disagree that the spiders are any more prone to breakage in the clutch, in fact they are subject to fail in the cone because of the cones spreading apart as they wear. This increase in distance decreases the engagement of the spiders-to-side gears. That's a major reason it's a very good idea to shim the cones if your gonna do the backyard cone grinding fix...
The clutch unit can hold more torque, and is fully rebuildable. It's just a better unit.
I'd rather have a cone than an open, but that's the best thing I can say about it.
