Bent Axle Ears?

I am putting the finishing touches on my Waggy44 swap, and as I go to install my drivers side axle shaft, I can't get the second c-clip in on either the inner or outershaft - they appear too narrow by @ 1/16"...?? I can't imagine that I actually bent the ears with my little HF ujoint tool, has anyone had any experience with this, cause its a new one to me...?

Not sure about the clips not fitting on there Chris. But I guarantee that you did not bend it with that HF piece. I snapped one of those in half at the threads, and put a serious S bend in another doing my balljoints..............

I managed to tweaked the ears on my P/S inner shaft using a Snap-On U-joint tool. ( I found out buy using the u-joint tool to press the new bearing cap in and popped the head of the far side cap off )

I used one of the old bearing caps and a big steel rod/hammer combo to push it back out a little.( I used my undamaged outer as a reference) Got it back together on the second go, but it was TIGHT. Checked it after about 30 Min. on the highway, it was a lot hotter then the D/S, but not burning, so I left it alone. A year later it's still not complaining.

Sounds like maybe you have one of the needle bearings out of place? It's pretty easy to do.

lawsoncl said:

Sounds like maybe you have one of the needle bearings out of place? It's pretty easy to do.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I've done that before, so it was the first thing I checked - all needles in place. It's weird, it pressed in fairly easy, I c-cliped the first side, pressed in the second, and it simply won't go in far enough to even come close to seating the second c-clip. It spins freely, and I actually took it apart once to double check on the needle bearing placement. The really strange thing, is I have the same problem on both the inner and outer shaft.

Since I have lockouts, I am considering tacking the caps in place and making sure I don't run them at high speeds until I can get a better set of shafts - thoughts?

Just weld em solid as in all the way around(not literally solid for the smartasses)and I wouldn't worry about it.

I used to run into this problem a lot on my D-44 that was in my fullsize chevy. I always opted to NOT weld them in, -just because.

It is possible to bend the yokes, -they are very malleable and can bend, -but usually if you bend them too far, the caps won't even go on to the trunnion of the u-joint cross, -so I seriously doubt that's the case with yours.

I used to re-use my old spring clips, because it always seemed that the new ones fit way too tight. One other thing I used to do was grind the clips down to make them a little thinner.

One time I managed to get a new set of spring clips in (just barely), but it made the joint bind really bad, -so in went the trusty "used" clips, and all was well.

Another alternative to welding is to use green loctite (the slow-set stuff). I used that for a while and never lost a cap, -and they aren't too terribly difficult to remove with the help of a propane torch.

My .02