- Joined
- Mar 28, 2003
- Threads
- 33
- Messages
- 334
- Location
- Marquette, MI; Jackson, WY
- Website
- www.tripleplate.com
Well, after pulling my front axle apart I got to see exactly what was the cause of my ailments. First off, my rig is a '92 FJ80 with the stock gears, birfs, and inner axles.
Well, it looks like the passenger side inner seal failed causing the diff oil and grease to mix into a souply sludge like mixture. I'm figuring this happened on the last trip I took it on which was a 4,500miler with stops in different areas for some hard wheeling. Anyway, driver side birf had had a click to it for awhile that I never tended too, and on that trip, the passenger side did. A week after I got home, I was tooling up a local trail when I had something catastrophic happen in the front axle that made a hell of a lot of noise.
Looks like from the mixing of the grease and oil, it end up causing my birf on the passenger side to run without grease, and the gears in the diff to be spinning in thick sludge, causing them to fail. And fail they did, as I discovered stripped splines on the inner axles along with chunks of metal in the pumpkin after draining it. Now, I've come to realize that I'll need to replace both birfs, all of the gaskets/seals, the inner axles, and the gears.
I thinking of going with Boby Long's super birfs and treated inner axles. From what I've read, they are stronger then OEM and cheaper to boot. My rig has a OME 2.5" heavy load lift and runs 33X12.50's. I use it for expedition type wheeling, but do get it into some heavy stuff frequently. Any reason why I wouldn't want to go with the Longfield's?
Next question, I want to retain the stock gear ratios as I feel they work well with my setup. Any recomendations for gears? OEM versus aftermarket? I typically go the OEM route whenever I can but my experience in the gear realm is a bit limited. Any insight you guys may be able to lend would be appreciated.
Well, it looks like the passenger side inner seal failed causing the diff oil and grease to mix into a souply sludge like mixture. I'm figuring this happened on the last trip I took it on which was a 4,500miler with stops in different areas for some hard wheeling. Anyway, driver side birf had had a click to it for awhile that I never tended too, and on that trip, the passenger side did. A week after I got home, I was tooling up a local trail when I had something catastrophic happen in the front axle that made a hell of a lot of noise.
Looks like from the mixing of the grease and oil, it end up causing my birf on the passenger side to run without grease, and the gears in the diff to be spinning in thick sludge, causing them to fail. And fail they did, as I discovered stripped splines on the inner axles along with chunks of metal in the pumpkin after draining it. Now, I've come to realize that I'll need to replace both birfs, all of the gaskets/seals, the inner axles, and the gears. I thinking of going with Boby Long's super birfs and treated inner axles. From what I've read, they are stronger then OEM and cheaper to boot. My rig has a OME 2.5" heavy load lift and runs 33X12.50's. I use it for expedition type wheeling, but do get it into some heavy stuff frequently. Any reason why I wouldn't want to go with the Longfield's?
Next question, I want to retain the stock gear ratios as I feel they work well with my setup. Any recomendations for gears? OEM versus aftermarket? I typically go the OEM route whenever I can but my experience in the gear realm is a bit limited. Any insight you guys may be able to lend would be appreciated.
I've seen something like that before somewhere. That's right in my garage.
