What's wrong with this birfield? (1 Viewer)

[60wag]

I'm in the middle of a front axle rebuild on my '96 FZJ80. The passenger side (short axle) birfield is a bit stiff. It moves but the range of motion before it binds isn't much. I took it all apart and cleaned everything. Even when clean, the spider is nearly a press fit in the cage. I pollished the outside surfaces of the spider with a scotchbrite wheel but that didn't do much. I reassembled the thing and it might be a bit better but its nothing like the other side, which is smooth all the way to end of travel. Any ideas? The cage doesn't seem to out of round - as best as I can tell with a set of calipers. The balls look good. I don't think its possible to be assembled incorrectly.

I was going to swap the birfs but now I'm wondering if the stiff birf will be really noisy if I run it the other direction. Anybody have a spare birf, in decent shape that they'd like to part with? Let me know.

 

[GXO]

Usually it is caused by the bearings wearing into the bell itself, not the cage being out of round, etc.

 

[therealratfink]

The spider does have a top and bottom, and so does the cage. It may have been assembled wrong before you got to it. The longer spider side goes outward as well as the larger cage side.

 

[IdahoDoug]

I'm with Brad on this. There's a thread on here somewhere showing the correct way to reassemble the birf and the star or cage can be reversed. If that's the case, it's a wonder the thing hasn't bound and shattered but perhaps you'll be the first to report that a well worn one has enough tolerance to actually run that way. One thing I DO know is that my '93 Factory Manual shows a '92 birfield and is little help. I don't know how many years the FSMs were like that, so wanted you to know.

DougM

 

[60wag]

My 96 manual still has the same picture as the 81 manual and is not accurate. The birfs in my 60 looked like the picture with a narrow and wide side on the cage and a protruding side on the spider. The 80 cage has about 0.01" difference between the sides and no protrusion on the spider. There is a groove on the outboard side of the spider that the retaining clip snaps into.

The stiff birf is definitely assembled the same way as the smooth birf. The cage side with the larger inside diameter is assembled inboard (towards the diff)

I can see how wear in the bell could cause binding of the assembled joint but I'm still puzzled as to how the cage can bind with just the spider. Every worn bearing I've ever come across devloped excess clearance, not interference.

 

[Romer]

I have a spare birf Bruce. It's a trail spare I bought from Christo a few years ago and is a little beat but would work. You might call Oleg as he is parting out several landcruisers or maybe Christo has a spare thats not in bad shape. Christo also sells new ones, not sure how they compare to OEM. I know OEM is $$$$$$.