Birfield stuck in ball housing (1 Viewer)

[ksaun]

Hi all!

I'm doing a full rebuild on my '72 front drum axle. I now have fj60 knuckles and "short" birfs in. I had to do some grinding to widen the opening on the ball housing enough to get the larger than stock birfs inside. Everything was perfectly clean and refurbished when assembling.

After doing some grinding, drivers side turned out perfectly, and I thought the passenger was too. Got everything greased up and inserted, put knuckles on a torqued everything down. The P-side birfield was pretty tight going in but I thought nothing of it. At that point, I thought I'd sanity check and take out the birfs just to put them right back in. Found that the drivers would come out great, but the P-side would not come out. (yes, flat sides are up and down). I think as the ball cooled down from grinding, the amount of clearance decreased just enough to not allow the birf to come out again.

A couple of weeks have passed, I got complacent and just assembled things further but I'm getting nervous about my decision to not address it now. I think the plan of action would be to disassemble everything on the passenger side, heat up the ball housing with a torch, slide hammer the birfield out of the housing, do some more grinding and then just put it back in.

Does anyone have any thoughts? Worth it to do it now rather than later? Thanks.

 

[ksaun]

A photo of when I found out it was stuck inside. Now have the spindle, hubs on etc.

 

[peesalot]

How hard did you beat on it to install ? I wouldnt worry about it but it could make for a bear of a trail repair.

 

[ksaun]

How hard did you beat on it to install ? I wouldnt worry about it but it could make for a bear of a trail repair.

I admit to some rubber mallet-ing, but I wouldn't say I really reefed on it. Certainly was the mistake I made.

 

[peesalot]

Honestly, if you didnt ape it in then I wouldnt worry, although you may want to fix now as removing a stubborn birf can be challenging, slide hammer hopefully works.

 

[Mr. Green]

I had this happen and realized two things, first was the birf was 180 from my install and rotating it I could get it out. Ground it further then tried again. Second was inserting shaft all the way into diff pushed the birf up into slight interference when inserting. I am guessing the second is what happened to you. I’m in the “worry about it later” club unless you wheel it hard.

 

[charliemeyer007]

If you fix it now while there is time and money, you will be way ahead then when there is neither.

 

[MOTOV8R]

2nd the suggestion to rotate 180* the flats aren’t the same size.

 

[ksaun]

If you fix it now while there is time and money, you will be way ahead then when there is neither.

I like the anecdote, thank you.

Appreciate all the info thanks all.

 

[POPO AGIE]

Hi all!

I'm doing a full rebuild on my '72 front drum axle. I now have fj60 knuckles and "short" birfs in. I had to do some grinding to widen the opening on the ball housing enough to get the larger than stock birfs inside. Everything was perfectly clean and refurbished when assembling.

After doing some grinding, drivers side turned out perfectly, and I thought the passenger was too. Got everything greased up and inserted, put knuckles on a torqued everything down. The P-side birfield was pretty tight going in but I thought nothing of it. At that point, I thought I'd sanity check and take out the birfs just to put them right back in. Found that the drivers would come out great, but the P-side would not come out. (yes, flat sides are up and down). I think as the ball cooled down from grinding, the amount of clearance decreased just enough to not allow the birf to come out again.

A couple of weeks have passed, I got complacent and just assembled things further but I'm getting nervous about my decision to not address it now. I think the plan of action would be to disassemble everything on the passenger side, heat up the ball housing with a torch, slide hammer the birfield out of the housing, do some more grinding and then just put it back in.

Does anyone have any thoughts? Worth it to do it now rather than later? Thanks.

I kept grinding on mine until I could get the axle to go in and pull it back out with a little drag. You may need to remove a little more material.

 

[Paul_A]

I would be very leery of heating anything without risking warping the housing, changing the temper, etc. The amount of heat required might have to be very excessive. A slide hammer would be a good investment for lots of uses.

 

[pbgbottle]

Loosen the bearing caps and see if you can get it out when you torque the trunnion bearings sometimes it squeeze the birf ,loosen knuckle caps and see if it comes out. Did you grind and fit them with the knuckle removed. If so this may be your problem on why they are stuck now

 

[archie73]

Loosen the bearing caps and see if you can get it out when you torque the trunnion bearings sometimes it squeeze the birf ,loosen knuckle caps and see if it comes out. Did you grind and fit them with the knuckle removed. If so this may be your problem on why they are stuck now

X2. I ran into this when I swapped for chromo last year. Drivers side was a bear, I had the slide hammer on it. I loosened the caps on the passenger side and it slid right out. Lesson learned.