Bent 8.8 housing tube?

[swflastang05]

Ever since I installed my 35 spline Strange axles, c-clip eliminators and spool kit I've had problems with the PS seal leaking oil. I replaced the seal once, then within 200 miles or so it leaked again so I then replaced the bearing along with another seal, and a couple hundred miles later it's leaking again. I'm told running a spool on the street with DR's is tough on the parts, no doubt about that, but we're only talking a few hundred miles here, not thousands of miles so something is not right. It's highly unlikely the brand new Strange Axle is bent, but I suspect the rear end housing tube is bent enough to cause this. Back when I first bought my car I had a buddy weld the axle tubes to the pumpkin for me as a precaution. He did not do it "properly" using the alignment bar and pucks, he just put it on jack stands and went to town with the welder. I think the PS bent during that process. I had all OEM axle bearings and seals before the Strange kit, which may have had more tolerance than the Strange parts. In any case there's nobody where I live that's willing to deal with this so IDK what I'm going to do. I really don't want to have to pull the rear end out of the car and disassemble and haul it 100's of miles away to be repaired, any suggestions?

The DS axle slides in and out smooth as silk, the PS can be done by hand but it takes some messing with it to get it completely seated, again leading me to believe there's any issue on that side.

I've read the tubes will "bend" easily by placing a small weld bead 90 degrees to them, i.e. if the tube is bent down place a small weld bead on top of the tube then when it cools it will shrink and pull the tube up. I discussed this with the best shop in town here and he wont touch it, says it's way too risky. I'm thinking about possibly taking a stab at it myself by seeing where the axle binds when sliding it into the tube, then hitting the tube with a weld bead in effort to straighten it out, my thoughts are what's the worst that could happen, it would get messed up, well it already is! Thoughts?

 

[eighty6gt]

Car broken... isn't this tech?

If you can slide the axle in without beating it with a hammer, it pretty much has to be aligned. Maybe the seal bore is misaligned?

 

[swflastang05]

Might be IDK. I hate posting stuff in tech when it's not, then catching a bunch of shit for it so I usually just post here.

I can slide the axle in by hand, with some finagling, but I need to tap on it with a rubber mallet to get it back out.

The seal seats in the c-clip eliminator, I think? Could be an issue.. or possibly the flange is bent.

 

[01yellerCobra]

Something I've seen done is using a press to straighten out a bent tube. It wasn't a bad bend, but enough like what yours sounds like. Unfortunately I think you're going to have to remove it and strip it down no matter what.

You can always get a bar that's the same diameter as the bearing saddles and slide it through the housing with everything removed. If anything is bent you'll be able to see it because the bar won't be centered in the tube.

 

[travelers]

You could measure the inner spline of your axel and get a length of cold rolled round and have the end machined to just slip into the spool and measure if there is a difference in the bearing area and the round. I would also have a machine shop make sure the round is straight. If there is a difference in that area you'll know where the bend is if at all.

With your setup I know it's not cheep as I looked myself is just over 3K for a 9". My setup isn't anywhere near your and probable never get used like your, but I'm sill thinking of going 9".

 

[swflastang05]

Okay, I messed with it some more tonight and I think I got it figured out. I pulled the PS axle and marked it with an arrow, then clocked it in different positions and found depending which way its clocked it will either slide right in or won't at all. In other words when the arrow is pointing down the axle slides in and out very smooth and easily however when I clock it 180 degrees where the arrow points up it's way off and wont go in at all without some serious motivation, 90 degree turns are in between.



Axle slides right in like this..



Way off like this..

I tried spinning the spool and found it makes no difference where the spool is the end result is the same.

So then I pulled the DS axle and did the same test and found it will slide in and out smooth and easily no matter which way its clocked. I knew the DS axle was slightly shorter than the PS but I decided to try to install it on the PS anyway and sure enough it engages the splines plenty for testing purposes and I confirmed it slides in and out perfect in any direction also - so unless I'm missing something I think my PS axle is bent! WTF! That's a brand new Strange Engineering 35 spline axle! Needless to say I will be calling them tomorrow morning..

Thanks for the replies above..more to come.

 

[Wes06]

Take them both out. Align then beside each other and slowly turn the ps axle to see if any gaps form?

 

[swflastang05]

Take them both out. Align then beside each other and slowly turn the ps axle to see if any gaps form?

That might work, I wanna see what Strange says first though, before I spend any more time on this. These axles are a little less than a year old, with literally about 500 +/- miles on them, heck my car didn't even have a motor in it for nearly 4 months this year, hopefully they will work with me, IDK what kind of warranty they have.

 

[travelers]

Hopefully they will send you a new Straight replacement.

 

[eighty6gt]

Nice job with the diagnosis.

 

[swflastang05]

Just got off the phone with Strange, to no surprise they said I need to send the axle back to them so they can check it out, they won't just send me another one, can't say that I blame them for that but at the same time it kind of sucks. In any case they will confirm if it's bent, and if so depending how bad they may be able to straighten it, failing that they will send a new one under warranty. The only way they will send me a new one now is if I pay for it, but they won't credit me back when I send the old one and they confirm the bend, which is kind of stupid but it is what it is, at least they will honor the warranty to begin with.

They did mention the mustang 8.8 housings are notorious for bending though when you bend an axle, they said it's very common if you bend one you bend both simultaneously, although since my DS axle fits fine I hope that's not the case here.

Oh well at least I don't have much going on with my car right now, since it's too frickin hot outside..

 

[travelers]

That's some good news.

 

[Scott]

Hope this gets sorted out quickly!

 

[NickD87]

I ordered a set of alloy USA axles and had leaking and noise issues after an hour of driving. Turns out the axles were machined poorly and the seals they sent were junk. I have heard of others issues with both strange and mosler, it's disappointing that there are still issues with high end parts like these.

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

 

[eighty6gt]

Friend broke a moser axle on his fox body doing a burnout, they wouldn't do shit for him.