[Edited] I f***ed my birfield by it to set the axlehammering past the oil seal, screwed it up.

[taoofbean]

Cautionary note: you can bend these things with a big hammer.
[EDIT] - Figuring out if I need to tear it all out and start over, including the diff. Opinions vary as you will see below. Short version of learning is that you should most likely never need to hammer the axle home and that you should most likely probably not have to hammer the birf/axle to set the axle into the oil seal. If you do, and you are me, you may have ****ed everything or nothing and it is no big deal.

I am rebuilding the knuckles on the front of my car and today was finally putting everything back together. I thought I would be safe hammering the axle home to set it in the oil seal because it was hardened steel. Well it is not that hard and my sledge needed to really wail on it to get it to set. It is actually quite tricky, you have to hold the birfield in one hand to make sure it is aligned straight and then with the other swing a sledge hard to drive it home to seat. Dumb move, don’t be like me and always hit into brass or a wood block, not the steel. It mushroomed the end ever so slightly now so that the splines don’t register on the end.

I was so close to the finish line on this huge project and I just ****ed it on the two yard line. Now I need to source and buy a new bird, uninstall everything, pull the short axle out, install a new birf, and then reinstall and retorque. Needless waste,

I borrowed a Dremal and by hand remained the splines on the end so that there was enough clearance to finish out the install but my handmade splines are not perfect.

 

[Mhks68]

Rough go on that one. Gotta put that brass drift punch set back in the cart. Find a good brass hammer to go with it. Before I end up in the same boat your sittin in. Get back at it brother. It'll be easier the 2nd time around. Good luck!

 

[Mark W]

Cautionary note: you can bend these things with a big hammer.

I thought I would be safe hammering the axle home to set it in the oil seal because it was hardened steel. Well it is not that hard and my sledge needed to really wail on it to get it to set. It is actually quite tricky, you have to hold the bird in one hand to make sure it is aligned straight and then with the other swing a sledge hard to drive it home to seat.

Hammering your birfield to "set the axle in the oil seal"? WTF are you talking about? I hate to sound harsh, but well... I am harsh I guess. WTF were you doing? There is no such thing as setting the axle in the oil seal. You do not "wail" on the axle with a hammer to seat it in anything. It slips through the RUBBER seal smoothly. How could that seal prevent that axle from "seating"? Not to mention that 99% of the length of the axle has already slid through just fine?


As a guess, you did not have the axle lined up properly with the side gear of the differential. Your slamming and abusing the end of the birfield probably bounced it into alignment.

That ain't how it is supposed to be done. Don't ever do that again. A bit of thought and manipulation and a bit of finesse is all it takes. Nothing tricky about it all really. Just set the big F*ing hammer down and use the noggin.

You probably do not need to replace the birfield. You can actually grind all of those splines past the groove clean off. The hub engages on the splines inboard of that. You will not be able to install the retaining clip of course. But you can use a bolt in the end of the shaft with a washer like found on some of the mini-truck front ends. Or forego any sort of retention there. It will harm nothing and actually opens of the option of pulling everything from the outer knuckle house outward as a single unit. Some will argue that this makes for easier replacement of a busted birfield on the trail. I am ot sure that I find it any easier, but it give you the option anyway.

Mark...

 

[ceylonfj40nut]

You likley f’d up the splines on the 3rd member too. Read and follow the FSM step by step!!!!!

 

[BlackCat]

yeah, not to beat a dead horse, but the axle should just slide in without much fuss. You should absolutely not need to beat on anything to get it into place. If you were having some other type of issue with getting the axle in then I would look at your process and see where you made a mistake.

 

[CruiserTrash]

I'm gonna second @ceylonfj40nut on diving in and inspecting the diff gears now - before you run the truck. All you do is slowly rotate the birf so the axle slips into mesh with the diff, then it slides in the last 1" or so. Sometimes it takes a little cantilevering so the diff end of the inner axle isn't too high or low, but really it should take about 10 seconds for it to slide in smoothly. If you were hammering on the end of the birf, well ... the inner axle was hammering on the diff gears. So now what do THOSE look like?

Download the Factory Service Manual from the Resources tab at the top of the screen. The knuckle rebuild will be in the Body and Chassis FSM, but you may as well grab the 2F Engine FSM and the Emissions FSM while you're at it. Did your knuckle rebuild kit come with instructions? I know the kit Cruiser Outfitters sells has a modified version of the FSM stuff printed out and stuck in the box.

 

[taoofbean]

Hammering your birfield to "set the axle in the oil seal"? WTF are you talking about? I hate to sound harsh, but well... I am harsh I guess. WTF were you doing? There is no such thing as setting the axle in the oil seal. You do not "wail" on the axle with a hammer to seat it in anything. It slips through the RUBBER seal smoothly. How could that seal prevent that axle from "seating"? Not to mention that 99% of the length of the axle has already slid through just fine?


As a guess, you did not have the axle lined up properly with the side gear of the differential. Your slamming and abusing the end of the birfield probably bounced it into alignment.

That ain't how it is supposed to be done. Don't ever do that again. A bit of thought and manipulation and a bit of finesse is all it takes. Nothing tricky about it all really. Just set the big F*ing hammer down and use the noggin.

You probably do not need to replace the birfield. You can actually grind all of those splines past the groove clean off. The hub engages on the splines inboard of that. You will not be able to install the retaining clip of course. But you can use a bolt in the end of the shaft with a washer like found on some of the mini-truck front ends. Or forego any sort of retention there. It will harm nothing and actually opens of the option of pulling everything from the outer knuckle house outward as a single unit. Some will argue that this makes for easier replacement of a busted birfield on the trail. I am ot sure that I find it any easier, but it give you the option anyway.

Mark...

Look I hear you. I expected it to be a smoother process and it was until I got to that last 1.5cm of push on each axle. But I bought these heavy duty inner axle seals and they are a tighter fit than the default ones. Why did I get more extreme seals? I don't know, someone on this forum convinced me it would be a good idea to upgrade. if I was going to tear the whole thing apart. My hammering the axle onto these seals may have significantly deformed them in the process, fair point. The axle body is 2-3 mm raised at the point where the seal seats and with these more aggressive seals, that was enough to be a significant barrier to what was a smooth process.

I don't think I screwed up the diff because both axles were slid smoothly into the diff before you engage with the inner axle seal. So the axle was aligned into the diff splines first, then the axle needs to seat into the inner axle seal which is where it hung up in that last 1.5cm of push on both sides. No amount of patience and finesse worked past it, I worked for 45 minutes each side trying to patiently reseat each before bringing out rubber mallet, dead blow hammer, brass punch, then steel sledge. The driver side required a couple good wacks on the end of the birf and then seated smoothly into the seal, you could feel it engage like a suction cup and then slid into place. The passenger side required a bigger hit, and it cocked it up the external splines leading me to do some dremel surgery just to get the Inner hub of the free wheel body to engage past the cocked up splines on the axle.

You are right, @Mark W that the free wheel hub cover and clutch does not even touch the axle so I could shave those teeth entirely off. I just could not lock the hub once fully assembled, it turns 2/3 so I made an assumption the clutch inside the free wheel cover engages the axle. Instead it engages outer teeth of the inner hub and somehow that is misaligned, preventing the hub from locking. If I sort out that misalignment, and I did not blow out those extreme seals inside the inner axle, maybe I don't need to buy a new replacement birf and do this whole process again.

I hope someone learns a lot from my mistakes, thus why I am not afraid to post them here.

 

[Rigster]

This sucks, but take it as a learning experience and move on. Don't beat yourself up too much about it. I can guarantee you that even the most experienced and professional mechanics out there made some doozies while they were learning.

As I am sure many out there will attest, a little turning, wiggling and forward pressure is all it should take to reinstall the axle into the axle housing. I would also suggest you might want to inspect your third member now on that side, and potentially order a new axle for that side. But wait until you inspect, so you can order whatever parts you need. If you need this as a daily driver, order a diff housing seal before you do the inspection (local toyota dealers should have them)

All the best...

 

[too tall]

If it was that hard to get then birf to go in then you most likely have a bent axle housing. You should also install the inner axle into the birfield before you put the whole assy into the axle housing. You will have a very hard time getting any birf onto the axle after the inner is installed. It helps to rotate the front driveshaft by hand while installing the axles into the housing. If you need to use a big hammer to put your axles in, you are doing something wrong or your housing is bent. I have done hundreds of axle installs and have never had to hammer the axles in unless the housing was bent. Bent housings are way more common than you might think.

 

[taoofbean]

I appreciate the commentary. I should have measured the new seal diameters compared to the ones that came in the cruiser outfitter kit I really think that most of this stuck was that part of the process. I am fairly confident the third member and the gears inside are totally fine as part of this process as the axle on both sides engaged with the diff fairly easily after a bit of cantilevering to find the slot and slowly rotating the axle to seat inside the diff. It was only the final 1% of sliding the axle inside where it hung up, leading me to break out the big hammer to get the axle onto the marlin crawler ecoseals. Maybe I bought the wrong size ecoseal by a few mm so that meant it was not smooth. The seals installed fantastic into the axle housing so at least the outer diameter of these things was correct. It felt like the inner diameter of the seal grabbed like a vice.

@too tall If I end up having to replace the birf I would take the whole short axle assembly out to complete the process. I will look into the axle housing, assumed it was not that because I had to pound both driver side and passenger side onto these seals, driver side was just significantly easier.

 

[CruiserTrash]

Wait, maybe I misunderstood ... @taoofbean did you install the inner axles first, and then try to hammer the birfields onto them while everything was in the axle housing? Or were the inner axle and birf together, and then you tried installing it? Building the axle/birf assembly on a bench is gonna be far easier with regard to compressing the inner c-clip. Then slide the whole assembly into the axle housing.

FWIW, I use some moly grease on the inner machined surface where the seal goes before installing it, then more moly on the lip & groove of the seal, and then a little more moly on the sealing surface of the inner axle. Sometimes I gently hit the sealing surface of the axle with a quick pass of 800 grit - probably doesn't do anything except help me sleep better. I don't use gobs of moly, but a decent smear so that stuff isn't going in dry. Gear oil would be fine too but at that point in the process I already have the tub of moly sitting there in preparation for packing the knuckle, so I just use it. Just wondering if you were going at it dry.

To your credit I have had some experiences where the entire axles feels 1-2mm to high up. It's pressing against the top of the seal and feels really tight. It usually happens just as I get the flat part of the birfield entering the knuckle ball. I am still not sure why this happens, but every time it does I just take the axle back out and try again. Maybe I flip it 180*. It always goes in easily and the right way after 2-3 tries.

 

[taoofbean]

No, I did not install inner axles and then try to pound the birf onto them, that sounds insane. I am not a serial murderer, just an idiot that used a sledge to get the axle/birf combo to finish that last 1-2 cm of engagement to fully seat because I was sure the axle seal was hanging it all up. I did everything as you suggested, greasing the seal with moly or bearing greas, polishing the axle interior, to make it slide easier, it just hung up when I hit that point like I hit a wall but once I hammered it, the thing slid onto place like the c clamp on these ecoseals relaxed enough to let the axle seat. I called Marlin Crawler and they are fairly sure I installed the correct seal for this application and that sometimes it takes a "few good whacks" to get the axle to seat. @CruiserTrash your idea about just pulling it out and trying again and again is a good idea I will pocket for next time instead of hammering it home. Right now, my hunch is that if I can get the free wheel hub clutch to engage the inner hub and lock the axle correctly, that I am going to assume this was all because the ecoseals are super tight. Everything turns smoothly now that it is together.

 

[CruiserTrash]

Ok, just checking! Somebody else made it sound like you installed the axle and then the birf and I thought I missed something. And yeah - that would be insane haha. Even if that Marlin seal is tighter - and I've never used those - you'd think the axle would seat with just a slight tap with a deadblow - the seal still has a rubber lip after all. You may want to check on the bent axle housing as suggested above, too. Not sure where to go from there other than diff gear engagement was not happening, or it was the mysterious "2mm up" condition we've both run into.

 

[Spike Strip]

I didn't read all the posts (Lazy), and sorry if this is redundant, but you have to have someone turn the front drive shaft so the differential splines line up with the axle splines and sometimes you also have to rotate the opposite side axle. It takes a bit of finesse... It should just slide in.

Lesson learned.

 

[Mark W]

Look I hear you. I expected it to be a smoother process and it was until I got to that last 1.5cm of push on each axle. But I bought these heavy duty inner axle seals and they are a tighter fit than the default ones. Why did I get more extreme seals? I don't know, someone on this forum convinced me it would be a good idea to upgrade. if I was going to tear the whole thing apart. My hammering the axle onto these seals may have significantly deformed them in the process, fair point. The axle body is 2-3 mm raised at the point where the seal seats and with these more aggressive seals, that was enough to be a significant barrier to what was a smooth process.

I don't think I screwed up the diff because both axles were slid smoothly into the diff before you engage with the inner axle seal. So the axle was aligned into the diff splines first, then the axle needs to seat into the inner axle seal which is where it hung up in that last 1.5cm of push on both sides. No amount of patience and finesse worked past it, I worked for 45 minutes each side trying to patiently reseat each before bringing out rubber mallet, dead blow hammer, brass punch, then steel sledge. The driver side required a couple good wacks on the end of the birf and then seated smoothly into the seal, you could feel it engage like a suction cup and then slid into place. The passenger side required a bigger hit, and it cocked it up the external splines leading me to do some dremel surgery just to get the Inner hub of the free wheel body to engage past the cocked up splines on the axle.

You are right, @Mark W that the free wheel hub cover and clutch does not even touch the axle so I could shave those teeth entirely off. I just could not lock the hub once fully assembled, it turns 2/3 so I made an assumption the clutch inside the free wheel cover engages the axle. Instead it engages outer teeth of the inner hub and somehow that is misaligned, preventing the hub from locking. If I sort out that misalignment, and I did not blow out those extreme seals inside the inner axle, maybe I don't need to buy a new replacement birf and do this whole process again.


I hope someone learns a lot from my mistakes, thus why I am not afraid to post them here.

More importantly, *you* need to learn from your mistakes.

You are not listening to what I, and others here are saying.

There is nothing exceptional about the seals you used. They are not "tighter" as you are assuming. The "2-3mm raised" section is where the seal rides is where it is designed to fit. It creates zero obstruction to the installation of the axle shaft. Trust me on this, I'm not making this crap up. I have lost count of how many I have used, but since I have been using the Marlin and Trail Gear seals on all of my and all of my customer's rigs since they first came out... it would be a rather large pile. Along with that, I am just a tiny bit familiar with the innards of the front axle and how the dohickies fit together with the thingamabobs inside there.

YOU DO NOT NEED TO APPLY FORCE TO GET THE AXLE THROUGH THE SEAL. THE PROBLEM WAS NOT CAUSED BY THE AXLE RESISTING PASSING THROUGH THE SEAL.

End of subject.

If, as CruiserTrash speculates, you attempted to install the axleshaft first, and then put the birfiield on it, then the problem was almost certainly the inner birfield clip not being aligned properly in order to slip into the birfield. I would never attempt to put the birfield on the axle this way because the clip will almost never never never never align on it's own. All the hammering in the world will not change it's mind. IF this is what was going on, then you mangled and sheared the clip, finally letting the axle slip into the birf.

Based on what you have said, and what you have "not not said" in this thread, I will put my money on this scenario.

(BTW, If you managed to get your other axle to slip past the clip rather than simply shearing that clip more easily... don't bother buying any lottery tickets... ever. You have used up all of any wild ass luck you may have had.)


EDIT: I typed the above before you clarified that you did not install it all this way. So... the inner clip was not the problem...



I do doubt that you damaged your differential. Unless, as I originally suggested, that axle shaft was misaligned and you beat the everloving chit out of it.

A collapsed/crushed/deformed inner knuckle can bind the birfield itself. But this would have created an abnormal removal of a complete (as opposed to broken and shattered) birfield. And the binding would have been very obvious as to where it was occurring as you were trying to reinstall the birf. This is also a seldom encountered problem and is usually only seen on rigs that see some pretty severe use.

I know I sound like a know it all. I am sometimes. I may sound harsh. I am sometimes. I am not trying to belittle you. I still remember the first time I went into a Cruiser Front axle. I was young and dumb, in a semi- strangers driveway, 200 miles from home, with a tool kit I could carry with one hand, no assistance and a dying flashlight. And far less knowledge and understanding of it all than you seem to have. I had a catastrophic knuckle bearing failure that I did not even recognize until it was pointed out to me. Young and dumb indeed.

It. Was. An. Ugly. Night.

I wish I had a resource like Mud back then. Nobody had a resource like Mud back then. Hell, the internet was not a thing yet even.

My point is... listen to us. The problem is not what you think it is and you may (likely do) have something going on that you have misunderstood/overlooked.


Mark...

 

[kevin in okinawa]

when I installed my new chromoly axles it took me AN ENTIRE WEEKEND to get the long side to move that final inch. An entire weekend of trying, trying, and trying to coax that axle into its home. Axles can be stubborn SOBs. In the end, I needed another person to rotate the diff flange and bang! it went in and I was finally done.

Sometimes these things can take time.

 

[taoofbean]

Mark, I hear you. This is my first rebuild and I am taking my time and trying to learn along the way.

If the axle stops in the last 2cm on both sides, and it is not the seal that could be obstructing it because as you said, that is not a thing, can you help me out with what it could be? I did not just pull both axles once I got to this point and fish them back in multiple times because at least on the long end, it was a pain in the ass to find the diff and get it to smoothly align like butter and slide into place into the diff. I didn't want to do that part again multiple times. The seal was the only thing I can think of as point of friction on both sides but I am completely open to whatever it could be. As part of this rebuild I dropped the third member and had it regeared and an ARB air locker placed inside. I had already installed and locked that new third member down before this attempt at finishing the knuckle rebuild. So this is effectively a new diff at the center of these axles. I wish I could peer inside the diff while it was installed without a scope to make sure things are not munged from that point of view.

 

[cruiserpilot]

It is actually quite tricky, you have to hold the bird in one hand to make sure it is aligned straight and then with the other swing a sledge hard to drive it home to seat.

Never.
Its a very close tolerance fit. If you ever use a BFH here you are doing it wrong. The axle needs to be held firm, slowly rotated/pushed/manipulated into place. You're gonna get greasy but it's what it takes.
Sorry you need to replace that. Put your hammer away.
I wrote all that and sent it, only to then have my pathetic hotel internet load all the answers.....MarkW said it right.

 

[taoofbean]

@kevin in okinawa when you say rotate the diff flange, tell me more. I hand rotated the diff itself (axle is still disconnected) from the output flange at the back while shoving both axles in and it helped align them but I didn't try while getting that last 2 cm.

 

[taoofbean]

Ok update as I try to figure out where I was getting hung up on both sides as I had the knuckle installed on the left and right as is instructed by the FSM and any install guide before I inserted the axle. Talked to my local cruiser mechanic who did the diff regearing and relashing and he told me that if you lock down the knuckle housing to torque specifications before you insert the axle/birf, there are times when the knuckle top and bottom plates come into contact with the birf/axle, keeping everything from inserting or coming out smoothly. You should be able to avoid this by having the birf rotated with flat side up but he said sometimes just releasing tension on the knuckle top and bottom is enough to provide the 1-2 mm of clearance that allows a birf/axles to seat in all the way and that my pounding may have just force it past this obstruction. Interesting theory. Also, don't do drugs kid and don't use a hand sledge to figure this problem out.