Doing some work on a 93 F150 4x4 that I inherited from my late dad. Have redone interior, replaced beat up doors, a fender, and the bed. Repainted myself(first time). The truck has turned out well until now. Noticed rear brake drums needed turning so jacked up both sides and removed hubs and found axle fluid all over passenger side brake shoes. Read book how to replaced rear axle seal.....1) remove hubs, drain fluid, remove pinion shaft retainer pin, slide pinion shaft out of the way for acess to C clips, remove axle C clip, pull axle, replace seal, reinstall. So here we go... removed hubs...drained fluid, removed pinion shaft retainer pin and the pinion shaft doesn't budge.......tapped lightly with hammer and brass drift...no luck. Looked at pinion shaft retainer pin and evidently, half of it is broke off and still inside threaded portion of carrier. I've got the threaded pinion retainer bolt head and about a 1/2" of threads out and the other half is still in the carrier locking the pinion shaft in place. I can't move the pinion shaft out of the way to remove the C clips holding the axle in place........HELP any suggestions???? Evidently someone had broken off bolt replacing maybe another axle seal, no gasket on rear cover, just rtv. ANY help would be appreciated!!!!

 

Looking for something like this perhaps? Differential Pinion Shaft Lock Bolt Extractor Kit

 

rla2005, you're a godsend.........I thought I was in BIG trouble, didn't even know they made a part like this!! I was getting ready to crank up the drill and an easy out, thought I would come back inside and check the post before I damaged something. I like that it has guides for the drilling, hope it works as claimed. Thanks for the info!!!!! Got one on order

 

Those bolts/pins, the Engineer @ FMC who designed that should be SHOT, and His BOSS for approving the design should be too. The 8.8 is the BIGGEST POS FMC has ever made. Might be a great little drive axle for a 4-cyl. 2.3L auto-equipped Ranger but NOT a half ton truck or Mustang. SON put over 150,000 hard miles on his '93 Lightning and the ONLY problem he ever had was with his Super-Duty stronger than anything 8.8 rearend. NOTE, the Gen II L's all got the 9-3/4" axle! For a good reason!

I've been around three 8.8's, and only ever found ONE to not be broken when I removed the rear cover. I actually had the broken end fall out of one once when I was trying to dig it out.

Ohhh Did I menton I hate the 8.8 rear with a passion?

 

Alot tougher then a chevy 10 bolt!! Lol and all my trucks have over 200,000 on the 8.8 no problems? Plus I do heavy towing

 

This is my second truck with the 8.8. Can't complain too much except for the bolt shearing off. My dad had this truck and he was a builder in the mountains of western NC and I've seen it loaded down and in places I never thought a truck would go. Its got the 4.9L and the manual 4speed with the granny gear plus the 4x4 with the manual locking hubs.....hard to beat!

 

....You have no idea what your talking about ....

 

^^^^^^^^^

I've never found one with a broken bolt/pin.. I've had a few I thought might twist off before coming out...

 

I second that emotion.

 

Yeah...people use 8.8's in high horsepower applications as a preference sooooo. I mean, chebby put a 7.5" ring gear in their camaros.

 

Like the girl told me one time " It's not the size of the "ring gear" that counts, it's the cute way you have of getting on and off!!!!!!

 

I just did my rear and stripped the head on the retainer bolt. The trick I used to get the bolt out it to put a piece of dry ice on it. Shrinks the bolt and out it comes.... I traced the reason for my leak on the passenger side drum, pinon seal and rear cover was a plug trans vent. Dam spider crawled in and plugged it.

 

I ferret away obscure links like this all the time. I thought it looked like a handy tool. I have never had one of those bolts break, but I always cringe the first time I snap one loose. If it does not start to move after a tugs I heat it up with a torch. Anything to break the surface tension and/or locking compound loose is the key.

 

I agree. Mine has just over 248,000 miles, I've been running
33's for over 80,000 miles with a locker and do donuts on dry pavement occasionally. I haul a trailer and also off road frequently.
Don't get me wrong I don't think that it's bullet proof, I'm waiting for it to grenade but has proven to be very durable.
I guess the fact that I have a few spares allows me to treat it so badly.

 

You little kiddies have never, I mean NEVER seen what happens to an 8.8 with over 200 real HP. Yes they hold up fine to a weak-knee'd 300-6, but throw one behind a stout 351W in a 4500 pound truck and let me know how that goes for you. I'm reminded of SON driving his '93 Lightning to one of the World Ford Challenge's in St. Louis years ago, sitting at a stoplight, light goes green, SON plants his right foot, both rear tires instantly spin, SON shifts into 2nd gear @ 4500 RPM, truck has only moved MAYBE 8-10 feet, engine doesn't even pull down with the shift to 2nd, he backs off the gas and the tires finally start gripping at around 3500 RPM, the guy that was tailgating him turned into the first driveway he came to. We were about a block down the street by then.

SON's '93 Lightning destroyed 2-3 side gears, broke a tooth off the ring gear & chipped the pinion gear, burned up two sets of Traction-Loc clutch plates, broke most of the ears off the friction plates a couple times. Yes, he drove it hard, but most of that carnage was with the stock GT-40 equipped 245 HP 351, E4OD, & 4.10 rear gears. You visit NLOC's site years ago you could have seen SEVERAL diff castings broken into two pieces on trucks with a power-adder. The Lightning 8.8 is stouter than ANYTHING ever used in ANY other F150 or Mustang, but it won't survive 245 HP in a 4500# truck with 4.10 gears & 32" tall 275 tires. The 8.8 that was in our '88 5.0L Mustang was a constant source of problems too, with only 225-250 HP in a 3300# car, but with the 5-spd it's easier to tear them up. It crushed the crush sleeve, loosened up the pinion, destroyed the pinion bearings, and that's after about 90,000 miles of mostly my wife's driving. And she NEVER ran the car hard by any means. Yes, there are 5.0L Mustangs still running fully built 8.8's with Billet everything internals that survive..... but the cars weigh MAYBE 2400#. If you guys understood ANYTHING about how drive axles respond to weight & HP you would realize that an axle limited in torque carrying capability can handle torque without weight, or weight without torque, but will NEVER handle torque AND weight together.

POPS4X4, your truck is EXACTLY setup the way I ordered out my new '87 F150, 300-6 NP435 creeper low 4-spd, manual BW T-case, manual hubs, 3.55 T/L 8.8 rear. I got about 100,000 highway miles mostly bouncing around empty before the rear wheel seals started leaking, broke two leaves out of the one rear spring, replaced the leaf spring & seals and traded the truck off by the time it got to 120,000. With NO HP that was the ONLY 8.8 that didn't eat itself. The 9" that was in my '78 F150 set up exactly like my '87 was totally trouble-free till I traded it just shy of 100,000 miles. Now THAT was a decent axle! The 8.8 does hold up to carrying loads, but that's all about the load capacity of the outer axle bearings, has NOTHING to do with the strength of the diff in handling HP or torque.

There was an article years ago in 4Wheel & Off Road mag about rating axles by strength, the 8.8 was rated weaker than the Dana 44 by a good bit, and about the same as the GM 10-bolt. There's a real good reason why FMC started putting the 9-3/4" axle in ALL F150's after about 1997.

You guys can all live in denile if you want, but just because you haven't opened up your 8.8 to see busted side or cupcake gears, busted teeth on the ring gears or pinions, doesn't mean the 8.8 is a good axle by ANY means.