Hello all

I took my truck in on the 13th to have one side of my ball joints, u-joint, and required seals replaced on the passenger side. Took the truck out the next day to haul firewood and noticed an unpleasant noise once I got off-road and put it in 4x4. I figured the other side was going bad too so I stayed out of 4x4, got a bit of firewood, and headed back home.

Started taking the truck apart to change the drivers' side ball joints and when I got the axle out I noticed that the u-joint was shot. Figured I was in the clear and just changed the u-joint. Nope. Ended up changing both ball joints as well.

Went out this afternoon to plow some snow for a new spot to stack my firewood and ..... yep, there be that noise again!

Figured I'd swap locking hubs to see if the noise followed one of them, but when I took them off I noticed that one of the three thrust washers was on the wrong side of the snap ring. Put everything back together and parked the truck in my driveway.

Didn't seem to be much room for that 3rd washer, plus I wanted to take everything apart anyway to see if anything else was put back together wrong.

Took tire, brakes, and wheel bearing hub unit off and noticed that the thrust washer that sits next to the seal had some "dust" on it. Pulled it out to find that the main axle seal had eaten away the outer edge of the grooved thrust washer.

Why had this happened? Because the guy that did the work damaged the main axle seal by bending it. The bent part of the seal was chewing up the thrust washer.

They are closed today, but I am going in on Monday to let them know that one of their other guys (never that guy again) is going to have to take it apart and replace at least the main axle seal and thrust washer. They are also going to take the cover off of my front differential and check for damage to the gears. If they junked it - they fix it on their own dime.

Because of the damaged seal the axle went too far into the differential.

My questions are:

Could this have caused any damage to my axle or to the gears inside my differential?

I am going to go into the shop and drive the seal on for them and also want to physically see the gears inside the differential. Is there anything else that could have been damaged?

Any and all comments, suggestions, etc. would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

I have no knowledge of that but here is a bump for you.

 

Bump

 

I am by far no experert on this but i would imagine that if the axle shaft went to far into the diff there is the possibility of some damage or wear because of the way that the gears line up. Kris (stroken7.3) would know, whereas he has pulled his apart and replaced the gears on a couple of trucks. (IIRC)

I would give the shop a call and explain what happened to them. They should fix whatever needs to be fixed with no questions asked. Do you have a shop around you that "specializes" in gears? You could give them a call and ask their opinion. Maybe it would be easier for shop A just to pay shop B to do the repairs correctly.

 

Why did you let them touch it if you can do all that work your self? It's such a pain to get them to admit that they caused any damage. Good luck, I do want to see how the shop goes about it.

 

I was thinking the same thing. Hopefully stroken7.3 sees this thread and chimes in, I'm going to have a very good look at the axle shaft splines on the diff side to see if there is any abnormal wear, shavings, etc. and tell them that I want the cover off the diff to check those gears out as well.

The shop was closed yesterday, and our town is too small to have a shop that specializes in gears. I thought about bringing up the shop A - shop B scenario, but in a town this size .....? I will ask anyway since they do not appear to have a seal driver that fits my axle seal.

Thanks for the response!

 

The temps at the time were still in the -26C (-15F) range and I was concerned that torquing in the cold would result in over-torqued bolts once it warmed up (esp this summer). Also, I've worked on equipment in the winter and broken a bolt or two - I wasn't looking forward to removing one of those again!

Had there not been any snow in the forecast I would have kept in 2WD until the temps warmed up, but I needed it to plow with. Seems I have no choice now that I have no truck and more snow is expected on 6 of the next 7 days.

I am really thinking hard about getting some concrete poured this summer for a shop that will at least be big enough to get my truck into. In-floor heating would be a treat!

Thanks for the response.

 

If he dosen't see it I have his phone number I'll give him a call later on for you.

 

The above assersion is simply not possible without changing the length of the axle itself.
Since that didn't happen, don't bother with checking the diff.

 

Thanks for clearing that up. Is it not possible because the inner part of the axle will only go so far into the axle tube before it is stopped by the shoulder that the dust seal sits on? I'm certainly not doubting you, but would like to know for my own information.

Thanks

 

The axle is held in position by the large nut inside the hub. From there it extends to where it "floats" in position in the differential spline. The spline moves in and out of the diff cage slightly when the steering is turned. Hard turns left or right will pull the spline out of the diff cage slightly because of the change in geometry.
If for some reason the axle "fell into" the diff cage, I doubt it would go far enough to cause damage, the splines end and the axle will simply bottom out against the splines.

 

I had the same problem with my passenger side. Everything is fine. My seal was toast! 4x4 works fine(once replaced)and I did the front differential drain and refill about a month ago and nothing was damaged upon inspection.

I would demand my money back for the whole job and not bother with them anymore. I wouldnt even order the new seal from them. FTEpartsguy.com even with shipping on the one item you might get it cheaper.

 

I bought all of my parts from powerstrokeshop so either way this shop is buying me a new seal (even with shipping and the exchange rate that cost was cut in half).

Not a whole lot of shops here in town so I need to keep some kind of relationship with at least one. Most of the time I try and do my own work, but once in a while circumstance dictate that I have a shop do the work for me.

On the other hand, there is only one mechanic out of four that I recognize so maybe it is time for me to move on (or build myself a shop here at home).

I still haven't decided on the money aspect of it beyond knowing that they will have to fix the truck like they were supposed to the first time. If they want to dispute that the same guy is not to touch my truck again, then I will just take the new parts and do the work myself. If that happens I'll figure that I'll never be back anyway so will get into it about the money.

It will be interesting to see how they approach this.

 

Good luck!

 

While I would be concerned with this, I wouldn't see it as a gross negligence. The seals are very difficult to install without the right procedure. If the shop hasn't done many of these, it can be easy to damage that seal and not even know it. They should have picked up on the thrust washers being wrong however.

The axle shaft isn't a concern at all though, the cross pin in the differential limits how far into the carrier the shaft can extend. The cross pin is pretty hard, so even if the axle shaft was being forced into the case, you would see damage on axle shaft, not neccesarily inside the differential or the cross pin. The seal forcing the axle shaft in wouldn't stand a chance of damaging anything in the differential. The seal isn't really strong enough to do that. Really it just messed up the number of thrust washers needed on the end of the stub in the wheel hub. Sounds like the noise is from the seal installation, probably grinding when the axle shaft is turning relative to the spindle. Allow them to replace the seal properly, and even let you see that it is installed properly before complete reassembly. They may try to claim you supplied the parts, but this is clearly an installation issue, and one that is easy to do if not done right.