bent axle/shaft questions

I bought an 8.8 from a salvage, brought it home, put it under the jeep, and welded everything up. On my first drive i found that my driver side wheel has an in and out type of wobble. Very visible. I thought it was just the axle shaft flange bent so i stuck a buddys spare 8.8 shaft (salvage shaft). Well i still have the wobble. anyone have any ideas on what else i could check?

Bent rim or tire? Throw a different wheel/tire on there with it up on stands and test it out. I had the same thing with my 8.25 but mine was just a bent flange on the shaft and the junkyard replaced it for free.

I think what you are seeing is typical play. I have built a few 8.8's and I see that in all of them. when its unloaded, the axle will walk in and out of the housing by as much as 1/8-3/16"
you can take the shaft out of the housing and roll it across a flat surface like you would a pool que.

Its not just typical play in the housing. Going down the road you can look out the window at the rear tire wobbling and you can feel it, almost as if all the lug nuts weren't tight. Though they were tight and i had to cut the tips off the lugs to get the nuts to seat tight against the wheel. I checked it with a dial indicator to measure the movement and it had as much as .080 of an inch total consistent movement. visibley it looks like alot more movement than that.

is it wobbling or is the whole tire moving in and out?

If you have already replaced the axleshaft I would say try another rim on that wheel

just had anoher thought. The studs on an 8.8 some have a little metal clip around them that I think the facory used to keep the rotor on durring assembly. They don't bother the Furd rims but can some others.

Make shure all of them are removed.

fixed......The brand new axle shaft i got from the salvage fixed the problem. Turns out both axle shafts i tried just happened to be bent.....what luck..