'97 mountaineer axle swap

[acabtp]

i am swapping rear axles (3.73 lsd) on my '97 mountaineer (v8 awd).

old part is a S621A 3L73 88 7A23 with lots of carrier bearing noise
"new" part is a S621E 3L73 88 9B06 from a lower mileage donor

everything I can find says that they are interchangable and things are bolting up so far, but I just wanted to double check.

 

[acabtp]

Follow-up question:
Are there any bright ideas to remove the lock bolt inside the old differential? It is really on there and it is starting to get stripped. I have soaked it in penetrant, heat cycled it a few times with a torch, tapped it with a punch, but it still won't budge. I am about to use a cutoff wheel to slice into the locking pin where the bolt goes into it, but that will take a while and be a mess. I thought about welding an 8mm socket onto the bolt, but I did not think I could get a good weld in such tight quarters or with all that old diff lube.

I do not care about the rear end it is being removed from, I just need to get the axle shafts out so that I can swap the dust shields and caliper brackets to my replacement axle.

 

[acabtp]

well, i got the lock bolt removed. in case anyone finds this in the future by searching: i ground the end down on an 8mm socket to remove the chamfer so that it could get a grip as far down on the head of the bolt as possible. came out no problem.

 

[acabtp]

Also, for anyone searching in the future... the S621E rear axle (from a '99 mounty) was a direct swap for the S621A that came in my '97 mountaineer.

No more ridiculous noise! Problem solved!