Solid Axle Probems!!

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Rooskey

Rooskey

Joined
Nov 4, 2010
Threads
17
Messages
124
I need a little help here. To start things off ill give you the low down on my situation. I have an 81 pickup but believe the front axle is out of a 79 or 80 (no gussett). The truck came with 5.29's and I decided to change to 4.10's (no problems at all and put 5,000 miles on it that way). Later on I decided to go with 4.56's and an ARB Locker. Things have been fine for the longest part, but here lately I have noticed a slight vibration while in 4wd (with and w/o locker engaged). It is ever so slight so I never worried about it until I changed the fluid in the front axle and noticed ALOT more than normal metal shavings on the plug and fluid. Everything still works as should on the axle and locker. One thing that I want to point out is that everytime we (mechanic and I) changed the gears and such we had to use a puller to get the axle's out of the housing. They didnt go back in that easy either (with both stock and arb diff's). Yes we did have the flats on the birfields lined up. Has anyone had any closely related issues as this. Any help or insight would be greatly appreciated. THanks
 
Do you think that is why it has been so hard to get the axles out of the housing? Even the short axle is hard to remove. Well I did find one problem with it tonight. The passanger side hub was not unlocking, so basically it was turning the spider gears 24/7.
 
And turning your Dshaft constantly. I would check the pinion for play at both the axle and transfer case. If its bent, theres a write up on here that shows you one way to fix it. Good luck!
 
Axles coming out hard..... Hmm.... Came with 5.29s so someone has been into it before! BOTH axles sticking.... are you familiar with a martack?? I wonder if someone followed the normal directions on how to do a martack which let me tell you aren't right! They could have placed the weld to far toward the end of the axle and the axles stick and are hard to remove (ask me how I know). Another thing is I do not see the short side bending. I also do not know the history of your axle and I know you didn't have the 4.10s in there very long but you didn't claim to have any issues with the 5.29s and my question has to be have you wheeled it extremely hard or been in a wreck since swapping gears? I could get beat up here for saying this but I am not familiar with your idea of a lot of metal but when I have put new gears in the oil was very shiny when I changed it after breakin...... Or are you talking shavings? As mentioned by liljlandon you have a lot of things turning because of your hub that could produce a vibration other than your third.
 
On the axle shafts check the end of the splines where they go into the diff. I saw a set recently that were boogered and hard to get back in. A triangle file will clean them up.
 
Well I decided to get an all new housing for the front. I found an 85 housing that has the full gusset on the bottum. I am going to be using all the parts out of the new housing, and rebuild it completely. Once I get the other tore down ill post up what all I find inside.
 
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