Quote from Dealer to Do Birfields

[Arya Ebrahimi]

Holy cow, I never thought anything involved with an axle could take an entire day to R&R when you're not fabricating something custom in the process. So you're saying that even if I were to perform the job in a shop on a lift with a parts washer and all it would still take a complete day, easy? Damn, now I know why U-joints and wheel bearings are so popular

I'm going to assume there's a comprehensive write-up out there and am going to search for it now, however if someone wants to link it for me, it would be much appreciated(I know the grammar on that sentence sucked )

Ary

 

[lovetoski]

I'm glad to hear Dan say that it's a couple of day job for "normal" people...my first took 3 long days (on my 80) though the oblong inner axle guide got knocked off, and that really slowed things down. I did my 60 in 2 easy days. In both cases I was super anal about doing a good job. It was hard enough, I don't really want to do it again soon.

Anyway - for Ary - there are a bunch of writeup on how to do this. Using the FSM is critical. Here are some links:
http://www.birfield.com/~morgan/tech/axle/index.html
http://george4wd.taskled.com/birfield.html
http://www.ih8mud.com/tech/birf-repack.php

Also, searching for key words like birfield and front axle and knuckle bearings will give a lot of interesting info.

 

[CruisinGA]

Not sure why but an 80 axle takes me longer than a 60/40 for some reason ???

Its a PITA job no matter what- A parts washer really helps cut down on time.

 

[cary]

I would NOT trust a shop to do the work. Maybe a private mechanic that you've known for a long time, so he actually cares somewhat about what you think and you. IMO, nobody will care about your vehicle at all, it's not their vehicle. If doing it yourself you may take hours to get it all clean, look at it, take pictures, look up other's pictures on the Internet, etc. No shop is going to do that, they don't care, cause it's not their vehicle. Ofcourse people who don't care can still do OK work, but no shop will ever 'take their time' and be overly anal about it.

Good Luck..

Well I beg to differ. I used to off road with my mechanic and still go to the races with him sometimes and have watched him work. He is anal and often gets picked on about his race car being so carfully constructed. I showed him the birfield job picts and instructions (he didn't want to commit to doing it prior to seeing what was involved, he works primarly on BMW's) and his comment was that it was almost identical to his old straight axle Toyota Pickup that he used to off road.

As I said above, when I told my wife that it would likely cost more to have our mechanic do it than the dealer, her immediate comment was "I don't care, I don't want someone working on the car that I don't know and that could care less."

Cary

 

[mabrodis]

As I said above, when I told my wife that it would likely cost more to have our mechanic do it than the dealer, her immediate comment was "I don't care, I don't want someone working on the car that I don't know and that could care less."
Cary

Cool response from the wife. I'm sure there ARE people who do care and who can do a good job, but I definetly say that most shops/people/mechanics have never done the work, and will not put the time and effort in that you would on your own vehicle. That's not saying what they would do would be crap and would fail, would probably work fine, but I still contend they will never care about it as much as you will, since it's not their vehicle.

Oh, and yes I totally forgot about Robbie/Slee-Offroad... Yes they definetly do care, I can't imagine how many hours Christo has saved me by showing me how to work on stuff in his shop. I was there to pickup some parts, he had a birfield all apart, showed me how it all went together, came apart, where to look for wear, how to grease it, etc...and I didn't even ask for any of this instruction I was just running out the door and he's like, here take a look at this so you know what you're doing at home... cool