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My rear axle supposedly had a seal leak issue once before and my uncle, dude I got the jeep from, told me the seals got replaced but didn’t seem to fix the problem. I remember reading somewhere, a thread I can’t find again, that you can take your axle somewhere to get checked for correct tolerances and find out if the axle tubes are bent? I can only assume that if the seal replacement didn’t work, the potential for bent axle tubes is there. Before I spend money on one piece axles for this thing, I’d like to make sure the axle is straight. Can anyone point me in the right direction?
'85 CJ-7, 258/4.2L 6cyl. Bought new in 1985. Full cage, Warn 8274 winch, Ford 9" rear, front/rear Detroit Lockers w/4:88 R&P. T-5 tranny and 4:1 t'case. 33X12.50-15 BFG/AT, MSD ign, on board air---
I was talking about the housing. But thinking about it now, if the housing was bent, the axle shaft would have probably bent at the same time and it would be a pretty obvious thing right?
A straight axle shaft will fit into a slightly bent housing due to clearances. You will have a hard time getting seals to hold though. If you do an internet search you should find what you are looking for even in a "YouTube" format. The Dana 44 rear axle housing on my CJ got bent a bit after an airborne ride. It will not keep a seal for very long, but its a full floater anyway.
I purchased my '78 CJ5 a few years ago and had been having some rear axle problems. Shortly after acquiring this CJ axle oil was seeping out of the hub. Upon removing the axles we noticed that the inner wheel bearings were WELDED to the axle, not by heat/friction, but by someone with a welder! A local shop re kitted this axle (narrow AMC20 ) with a Yukon 1 piece axle kit. 1st try and the bearing free play was too tight - burned up the wheel bearings. 2nd try, too loose - axle backed out of the housing shortly after leaving shop. 3rd try and things went well for about two months and then noticed some seepage at the rear hub again. Sure enough, the free play had increased. This go, a non stock bearing keeper was installed to hold bearing firmly in place -we hoped! The shop chief noticed that there were two half circle ( ) inserts incorporated into this axle that were part of the 'welded' axle, no mention of these in the AMC service manual that I luckily had acquired since getting this Jeep, and another odd thing is correct free play couldn't be obtained without these half circle inserts. We contacts Randy's Ring and Pinion and learned that a spacer was missing for the kit we had purchased from them earlier. We had to pull the dang thing apart AGAIN and with Randy's on the phone for guidance we set the bearing clearance at the long side of tolerance, 0.62
One week later I smelled that old 'hot bearing' odor
I had become so familiar with, pulled the axles again and saw the damn roller bearings formed a 'conga line'. So I made a trip out to Mac's Jeep Parts and we pulled a Dana 44 out of an old Jeep Scrambler, installed a Lock Right differential and new bearings throughout and I've not had any issues since (knock on wood). After turning in the AMC20 for core we noticed that the troubles lied in that the reason the inner wheel bearings were welded to the axle shaft were that the axle tubes had become crooked from the differential, must've took a heavy bounce at some point. I sure hope yours is an easier path!
