Thanks for the tips! I'll definitely follow this when I try to fix it. It's going to be a temporary axle under the 88 after I mess with it, but as long as it can hold for a little while if I do decide to get a motor in that then that's all that should matter. I should hopefully be able to swap another axle under there by the time I find a motor for that.

I have to swap pinion yokes/flanges between the axles though. The 88 has a pinion yoke which is damp and pretty loose (lots of side to side motion) while my Bronco's cracked axle has a pinion flange that is pretty tight and dry.

I'm hoping I can just get a new seal and crush washer and swap the flanges. I may attempt to swap other components as well depending on how the interior of the 88's looks, but I'm not expert with axles and don't want to get over my head with replacing things I can't resemble correctly.

 

if you can find where each crack ends, drill hole in each, to help stop crack from running when you start trying to weld it

 

So it turns out the new axle looks like it's not in the best of shape. I took off the pinion yoke since it was super loose and damp, then inspected the first bearing I could pull out. It has a decent amount of pitting in it...

I took off my cracked axle's pinion flange and the bearing in there looked new. I may be getting in over my head, but I'm going to try and take apart the cracked axles innards, and swap them with the non-cracked axle. I don't have a bearing race installer, so I may just leave the races in place on the non cracked axle. There was some pitting on the race near the pinion yoke, but it wasn't a lot (still probably not a good thing.)

It's super frustrating having no vehicles to get around, and more problems keep coming up. I can't afford to get a bunch of new tools or new parts, nor can I drive to get them to try and rebuild the axle, so I'm going to do my best with what I have and hope it can get me by! If I can swap the inner parts of my cracked axle to the other axle, I'll drive around on that for a while and see if it holds up. I'll then hopefully be able to get enough time on that to go to a junk yard and find another axle for the 88 (and possibly another axle for the Bronco since I don't know if I can trust my ability with swapping internals.) I don't have an in-lb wrench, so I won't be able to set the pinion bearing load correctly.....

Wish me luck!

 

So it turns out the pinion races are in really bad shape on the 88\s axle, so I think it was be highly unwise to try and re-use them.....

I'm not sure if this is going to work out but I may try and pound out the races from the 96 axle, then pound them into the 88 housing. Everything inside the 96 axle looks new, it's just the tube is cracked..... Some of the stuff in the 88 isn't in too bad of shape, but for the most part it was pretty messed up.

 

Your local auto parts store may have all the special tools you need for loan. Step back, make a few calls, git er done!

 

Yeah I think harbor freight has the race installer tool. It's 40 bucks and I don't know if I'll be doing this again, but that's the best option for me right now.

I've been working nights and my wife gets home pretty late from work, but places may still be open by the time she gets home. She does work tomorrow as well, but I should be able to take her to work and use her truck or something. I have everything out and I'm ready to put the other races into the different axle, I just need that tool, and an in-lb torque wrench. I'll also need some new gear oil, but it seems like this may actually work out!

 

I drive races in and out of housings with a brass drift and hammer. Works great.

I would keep the same pinion with it's original housing, and use the matching ring gear with it's original carrier. Basically just get new bearings and install them in the 88'. Swapping parts (like gearsets and carrier) is not recommended if you can't setup the gear pattern.

​​​If you need to swap the inner pinion bearing, and don't have a shop press with bearing clamshell, you can use a grinder to cut the bad bearing off (be careful, cut on two sides). Then put the pinion in the freezer, new bearing in the oven at 250F. Carefully drive the new bearing (while hot) onto the cold pinion. Make sure the original pinion bearing shim is still on the pinion! This sits between the pinion gear head and the inner pinion bearing, and sets pinion gear depth in the housing and is critical for ring and pinion longevity. If carrier bearings are junk too, use the same idea for bearing removal and install.

Just swapping the '96 ring and pinion into the '88 housing without setting up the gear pattern is not something I'd do. Could try it, check the pattern, and make sure it's reasonable. If it's way off, you don't want to run it. It won't last. If it's good, great, but seems like a lot of work with no plan B.

Why not take the axle out of the '94 f150 (head gasket issue) and use that? Then deal with axle issues in the non runners when you have a functional bronco. This would be my choice if I were in your shoes.

 

Thanks for the response! I ended up going to harbor freight and getting the race installer, I dial indicator with. Magnetic base and also a beam torque wrench from O'Reillys.

The pinion on the 88 axle isn't in very good shape either so I don't know if it's worth reusing:


You can see some chunks taken out of the gears.

Originally I didn't want to take the axle out of the 94 F150 and it was covered in snow not easily accessible with the last sow storm. However a lot of the snow has melted so it shouldn't be too bad to get that out now. The gear ratio is the same on it as well.

If my gear swapping doesn't pan out for me, then I will have to swap that axle from the 94. I was being a little stubborn because I wanted to fix the head gasket on the 94 and drive that soon, as well as the snow that covered it with the position it was in I didn't want to mess with that.

I figure now since both the 88 and my Broncos axles are not good on their own, I'd try and make one good out of the two. Worst case scenario, I don't think I'd be out any more than I am now if I mess it up. I am learning a bit with this so there's always that!

From what I learned so far, the three BIG things with setting up and axle are:

1. Get the preload on the pinion bearings correct (which should set the proper depth with correct preload I think?)

2. Get the backlash of the ring gear and pinion correct (which is around 0.008 to 0.012)

3. Have the gear pattern between the ring gear and pinion correct (so the gear "ceneters" should be touching).

I think as long as the pinion depth is correct, 2 and 3 are set up properly by the shims on the side of the carrier assembly under the caps. From my reading, it should be pretty close to correct with a stock carrier swap.

I could be completely wrong however, but I think if I'm ever going to learn, this is the best set to try with.


If it does fail, I'll be swapping the axle on the 94. I really would like to get that up and running instead of my Bronco because I don't like driving the bronco in the snow much. I don't think they use much for salt up here, but I'm trying to preserve my Bronco as much as I can. I thought swapping this axle would be cheaper and faster than a head gasket/possible cracked head but it's turning out to be the same or more.

 

Well I got the old stuff in the 88 axle. I used a beam torque wrench with the carrier out and it was just about 8in-lbs of torque WHILE turning. The break-away torque was about 30in-lbs. I tried tightening a little more but the axle kept moving and almost falling off the jack stands. I couldn't get a great angle to tighten the nut any more (it was pretty tight).

I then bolted the 96 axle carrier into the 88 housing. I first tried using the 96 spacers for the carrier, but it was way too tight trying to shove the carrier in there. I the used the 88 spacers and the axle snugged in relatively tightly but without too much effort (didn't need to use a hammer to tap it in).

I measured backlash and it's about .011.


Im not quite sure how to check the gear mesh (if it's sitting correctly) so I'm going to see if I can look that up real quick. If that's good, then I'll rinse this out with some gear oil, replace the axle seals, then put it all back together!

 

Well I bolted everything up and drove around a while. I don't hear anything unusual and it feels good driving. The diff didn't seem hot to the touch either. I guess I'll see how long it holds up, but maybe it will work out until I save up money for a 10.25 axle swap.

The annoying this is I couldn't fully bleed the brakes... They are usable but there is definitely air still in the system. Its super annoying trying to bleed brakes by yourself and the harbor freight vacuum bleeder wasn't cutting it. I'll see if I can get someone to help pump the brakes so I can bleed them better sometime this week.

 

If it's pretty quiet you might be set. Your picture of gear pattern didn't show up?

For bleeding, I found a bar that fits between the seat and the brake to hold the pedal down while I run around to crack open the bleeder. Tedious, but works.

 

Yeah I cut a piece of wood to hold open the brakes and run around to crack the bleeders. It definitely got air out, but I didn't get it all. I was doing one at a time while pumping the brakes a bit (then using the block of wood to hold the pedal down.) I suppose I didn't pump the brakes enough times when doing that. With the floor being kinda wet and gear oil everywhere, it made it quite unenjoyable.

As for the pictures, it was a little video of the gear lash, I'm not sure why it wasn't coming up but here are some stills




I never did check the meshing pattern because I wasn't exactly sure how to (and I didn't spend much time looking...) I read somewhere that someone used peanut butter, but I didn't want to dirty up the inside of the housing so I left it as is.

 

99% of the time i just gravity bleed the brakes and get all the air out.

 

Yeah that's what I'm trying to do right now. My back passenger brake didn't seem to want to let any fluid come out until I took the bleeder all the way off. It didn't seem clogged when I took the bleeder over to my air hose and blew it out though. I let that side drain for about 10 minutes without the bleeder on. It didn't drop the reservoir much at all though, but it did drop a tiny amount. I'm going to try to other sides and see what happens.

Edit: After looking into it, it appears the replacement axle has speed bleeders on it. No wonder gravity bleeding wasn't working...