axle & spindle | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

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axle & spindle

smegun

Well-Known Member
Joined
April 3, 2013
Messages
394
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City, State
florida
Year, Model & Trim Level
1994 ford explorer xlt
im looking for a reason for my axel on my passenger side not centering in the spindle as well as it should everything appears normal about the shafts without taking the axel out but when i engage 4x4 there is pull right that is twards the passenger side as well as noises coming from the wheels ive tried new hubs and same result in rear wheel drive mode the truck is ok alignment is good only a little radial noise maybe heard im going to replace the rim it shows evidence of taking a shot to the rim and might be unbalanced causing excess radial type noise but what would be prone to being in need of replacement

is the knuckle bent? or is the spindle? or is the camber off? axle tweaked ?

the axle isnt under duress when out of 4x4 and its hard for me to believe that assembly is tweaked when i add up the ammount of reinforcement around the knuckle spindle axel combination the truck should be able to hang suspended by it but what is prone for error


next experiment fully take down the passenger side front end ??????
 






If the vehicle pulls to the passenger side when in 4x4 mode then most likely you have a bad u-joint in the passenger side from axle.

I have never changed the u-joints for the front/right axle while it was on the truck but I wouldn't expect it to be very easy since things will be in your way BUT you might be able to do it using one of those ball joint presses that look like a big C-Clamp.

There are 2 u-joints on the front passenger side axle shaft. The outer one, which sits in the steering knuckle and another one on the shaft that goes into the differential. The passenger side shaft is actually 2 parts. Once you take the spindle off you can pull the outer part of the shaft out and then you could replace that u-joint. If those 2 pieces have never been apart it will fight you AND there is a rubber boot over the joint that will need to be removed to allow the 2 parts to come apart.

If you find it is the inner u-joint that is bad, it will take more work to get it out. The inner part of the passenger side/front axle is held in by a c-clip. Just about everyone cannot pull the axle out without taking the differential apart to remove the c-clip first.

If you find you need to pull that axle out you really should look into the c-clip eliminator made easy thread (http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=256302). The thread shows you how to get that axle out AND it shows you how to get rid of the c-clip and use a shaft collar and a spring to hold the axle where it belongs. Now you can easily pull the axle out if you need to in the future.

Hopefully all of that made sense....

~Mark
 






replaced the u joints some task to do but doable the joints were frozen on 1 axis after re install (moog greasable joints :) ) appear to be centered well but i still got some clatter when engaged into 4x4 especially 4x4 H makes the most noise

i have another passenger axel to experiment with i might get a new u joint put in it in case the one i have is out of round
 






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