Damaged front axle ball replace or.... (1 Viewer)

[Wheelingnoob]

Well we are nearing the time to tear down Gavin's HJ60 to do a lot of work. One of the things that is needing attention is the front axle ball on the pass side. When we rebuilt the axle last fall we found that the seat for the lower trunion bearings was mangled (stretched) so the race that was in there was shattered into 5 pieces and fell out. When I went to install the new one it would not sit in there and would fall out as well. I indexed the seat with a punch to make the race stay in place. Since the rebuild we have done and alignment and the camber on that side is off a few degrees. We have also found that the slop in that lower trunion seat has aloud the wheel to kind sit cock-eyed when driving, this has worn the inside of both front tires excessively.

The axle app-on rebuild showed signs of broken birfs and other shoddy repairs. I did the best at the time to repair it to a point it would be drivable for him but I'm afraid we may need to start with a new housing. We have a front housing out of the truck we parted to start with.

My questions are should we cut and turn the parts truck housing and rebuild it for Gavin's truck. Or try and take a ball off the parts one and fit it too the housing in his truck now saving us the cost and time to set up the other housing from scratch.

Thanks

 

[Fantom]

I'm assuming that you are needing the housing to be cut and turned?
So a factory housing would not do the trick for you, you would have to modify it.
In that case it does not matter if you remove an end from a much better conditioned housing and put it on the already modified one. Less work that way. All you have to do is make sure it is 100% dead on. Otherwise there will be issues. Measure the placement of the bearings, angles, eveything, to make sure it is in the same position. Satting up a small jig of sorts for line up the bearing holes to the rest of the housing might be worth it.
But that sounds like it would be less work than cut and turning another housing and doing it on both ends.
Just my $0.02

 

[Wheelingnoob]

I'm assuming that you are needing the housing to be cut and turned?
So a factory housing would not do the trick for you, you would have to modify it.
In that case it does not matter if you remove an end from a much better conditioned housing and put it on the already modified one. Less work that way. All you have to do is make sure it is 100% dead on. Otherwise there will be issues. Measure the placement of the bearings, angles, eveything, to make sure it is in the same position. Satting up a small jig of sorts for line up the bearing holes to the rest of the housing might be worth it.
But that sounds like it would be less work than cut and turning another housing and doing it on both ends.
Just my $0.02

Yeah we would need to cut and turn the parts truck housing if we wanted to use it in Gavin's truck. Not the end of the world but if we can save the cost of redoing the cut and turn then great (spring pads and so on). I should also try and find a way to make sure the housing on there is not bent as well for that mater make sure the parts truck housing is straight too.

If we where to just swap the ball/s then we could leave the housing its self set up as it is and just dial in the balls with the correct caster and make sure the width stays the same. Both balls have a lot of damage from the birf exploding a few times in each. I should tear down the parts truck housing and make sure its in usable shape before planing anything 100%.

 

[Fantom]

if both sides have issues, then you would need to replace them both, at that point it almost seems like starting from scratch might be a better option. Well worth checking the housing for warpage. Since it is both sides, I would start from scratch then, spring perches are easy to fab and cheap to buy.

 

[Wheelingnoob]

if both sides have issues, then you would need to replace them both, at that point it almost seems like starting from scratch might be a better option. Well worth checking the housing for warpage. Since it is both sides, I would start from scratch then, spring perches are easy to fab and cheap to buy.

Yeah good points, I think I could make a jig off his C&T axle he has in there now and use it to make the parts truck axle the same. His truck drives great down the road straight with no pulling or DW so want to keep the settings its got now. May need to make a few adjustments as we are planing on lowering it a bit as well.