Why did the Chicken cross the road?

[fordman]

your right the seal does seal against the axle and doesnt let the fluid go to the bearing. i dont know what i was thinking. fo rsome reason i was thinking it was a beveled bearing like the front wheels have. but they are a sealed bearing that sit in the housing as the race kind of. i guess that is so they can sell more bearings. since they are sealed.

[fastEdsel]

I gotta jump in here. On all my Ford pickups I have ever owned and I have owned a lot of them, a proven tell tale sign that a rear axle seal or bearing is weak is oil leaking past the seal and "spinning" onto the inside of the rear tires, whichever side is weak. The oil will look like stripes flying out from the inside of the brake drum to the outside edge of the tire. OK, that's an oil leak. If you grab the outside of the rear box and shake the truck sideways and hear a definate "klunk, klunk", don't drive it until you get the rear axle bearing keepers checked. You really know there is trouble coming when you walk behind the truck and smell that definate odor of 80/90 gear oil. Then you had better crawl under the back end and look for signs of wear or oil escaping. Also, and this is very important, make sure the axle vent is open as excess heat from operating the truck for long periods of time or hot weather will cause the air inside the housing to expand and that will also send oil past the seals and onto the inside of the tires. Another way to check is to park the truck on level ground, place it into neutral after you have blocked up the front tires, jack up the rear wheels, either both or one at a time, then try to shake the entire wheel up and down. If it knunks, take it apart. I used to take mine out and remove everything on the axle with a "blue wrench", aka cutting torch, but anymore I just take the axle and all the bearings and keepers to a shop and have it all pressed off, cleaned and pressed back together. I had a '73 F100 4X4 with the so called "heavy duty" rear axle. 4:11 gears and the rear axle bearings were roller bearings. That is the only one I have ever seen like that. All the rest have been sealed ball bearings.

[mouse]

Why did the Chicken cross the road?
to get out of the way of a tranny pan!

[willowbilly3]

I never could figure out why those stay together, it's all just pressed on.
I usuall torch all the old stuff off and use a piece of pipe to drive on the new. Just make sure you have ALL the parts on before assembly!

[Hawkrod]

I never could figure out why those stay together, it's all just pressed on.
I usuall torch all the old stuff off and use a piece of pipe to drive on the new. Just make sure you have ALL the parts on before assembly!

You should really try and avoid using a torch to remove bearings and retainers. It can affect the axle tempering. Most of the time it won't cause a big issue but once in a while it will cause an axle failure. It only takes one failure to make up for the time savings of all the others! The best way to remove bearings and retainers is to cut almost all of the way through with a cut off wheel and then fracture them with a chisel. I prefer to make two cuts, one opposite the other, so the parts will fall off and then I use a rounded chisel as a wedge to break the parts. Hawkrod

[bjde0b]

Hawkrod is 100% right. Never torch the bearings off. Cut it with an air tool or such. Cut the outer race in two places 180° apart. Then cut the retainer close, but don't go through. Wack it a few times with the cold chisel and it will break and slip off. The inner race is the tricky one. Cut in close without cutting the axle lip. Again, hit it with the cold chisel when it is thin. My cutting wheel didn't make a wide cut so the cold chisel wedged the race out. With the chisel still in the groove opening the clearance, it slid right off.

ALWAYS WEAR SAFETY GLASSES! I took a 1/4" sliver of metal in my hand while using the chisel. These races are very hard so they will crack and break. The sliver went pretty deep and I gave myself minor surgery removing it. I could only imagine what would have happened if I took it in the eye instead.

[Fordnatic]

Watch the shop install the bearings. I witnessed a bearing being driven on, then instead of pressing on the retaining ring they just heated it red hot and dropped it on! Needless to say I'm certain it did not have the holding power it did before that.

Also most of the 3/4 tons or greater have full floating axles which have regular tapered roller bearings lubed by the fluid. They are much stronger because they have only the stress of torque on them, the hub carries the load instead of the axle.

[mmerlinn]

I had a similar thing happen to me in a 73 Dodge 1-ton van about 1990.

Was fully loaded (10,000 pounds gross weight). Doing 65 on inside freeway lane going down hill. As the lane started bending to the right, my tire and axle came out and passed me. Fortunately no one else was close. I managed to steer the van across the right lane and onto the shoulder before the van finally stopped. A car half mile back saw it happen and stopped to help.

As I was waiting for a wrecker I looked for my tire and axle. I spent 2 hours looking for a 9.50x16.5 tire with a 4 foot axle attached and never did find them. All flat land and short grass for half mile in every direction.

Bet whoever finally did find that tire & axle wondered how they ever got wherever they were.

Destroyed the rear end. Left rubber marks on left quarter panel where tire hit it as the tire vanished from sight. No other damage except to my sanity.

Apparently the big retaining nut backed off allowing the axle to leave me stranded. I suspect that the last person who worked on the rear end did not installed the nut locking apparatus properly. When I had the rear end replaced, I physically stood there watching to make sure the nut was properly locked.