Hehehe, John, you are hilarious!"Bend over backwards?" Thanks for making my day. First time to hear it and I am very impressed by it too. It's one of the reason I love and respect Americans. Is your business regarding automobiles/trucks? If there is anything I can be of help, you know my email, right? Thanks and God Bless!

 

Axle Surgeons Services This is the home page of the website.It isn't a very good site as far as websites go. The number listed in the site is for national dispatch. There are over 130 Axle Surgeons throughout the U.S. and Canada. We replace spindles on trucks and trailers after they have a bearing failure. In most cases it's cheaper than replacing the axle. The spindles are made of a special alloy metal, not just mild steel. Most of what I work on is semi-trucks, but we work on anything that has a floating axle. 3/4 ton trucks and up. From little boat trailer axles and campers up to semi's. The largest we have done was a 50 ton Euclid truck at a rock quarry. I don't expect most to understand what I just wrote up here, but that's my job.

 

I know exactly what you do, and why you do it rather than replace the whole axle. As far as the threads on the axle housing, do you reshape or weld up and recut? I've always marveled at how the axle housing can be repaired. Or do you do only trailer axles, not drive axles?

Edit: Should have looked at the website first. Interesting.

 

Everything we do is a complete spindle replacement. Welding on the spindle will weaken the steel. We replace both trailer and drive axle spindles. Doesn't matter how much is damaged, we cut the whole thing off and replace it. The new spindle goes up inside the axle about 7 inches on a trailer axle, and about 4 inches on a drive axle. Drive axle spindles are actually press-fit into the housing. Our repair is cheaper, and faster. I can replace a trailer spindle in less than 3 hours, and a drive axle in less than 5 hours.

 

What is the finished product's alignment tolerance? Just how much clearance is there between your replacement spindle's OD and the ID of the existing housing?

Does each repair require a custom-machined product to be flown in, or are there off-the-shelf replacements for a broad cross-section of axles already on your truck or in your local shop?

Has there ever been a known failure of your repair procedure, and if so, was it materials or workmanship related?

Pop

 

Rob,

In my younger days, I hauled cargo from California to Michigan in a long bed F-250 with a Fiberglass topper. I hauled one pallet to GM. Two people could pick up the pallet. It was that small. GM had the box insured for $5M. I do not have any idea what the hell was in the box. I do know that I pissed off those black vics that escorted me.

It was some type of government shipment and man, it paid well. Seems they could only get abot 300 miles to a fillup and neither driver seemed able to pass a reststop. They were constantly having to play catchup as I did not stop until I had to. They did not know that I was on a time schedule apparently. Their orders was to escort me. Believe me, they did. LOL

I had to have that box at a certain place at a certain time, no ifs, ands or butts. They also complained to the reciever that at times I was pushing the lead car at over 100 mph on the interstate. Bunch of candy asses.

 

I want a job like that!

 

Pop, those are some good questions. I wish more people out there knew to ask such questions.

 

No you don't. Hauling sailboat fuel may pay really well, but the penalties for doing even the tiniest stupid things generally were 20 to life. I was US gov't sponsored, but I think GM was just like that.

 

Thanks for the information and explanation. I knew axles were repaired but not ends replaced like you do. Very interesting. Your company's website does explain the process with pictures. Wish they had a list of contacts for the service.

I know that this thread got off topic but this is what makes FTE so valuable. We can learn something from the OT that we can use in our everyday life.

 

1-877-349-2953 is the number for the main office. They take your information then contact the closest axle surgeon. Once you make the first contact, you can get his number then you won't have to call the main office anymore unless it's to register a complaint. If you've got questions and want to give me a call I can PM you my number.

 

I was just recording the information for the future. We have a couple farm trucks and a semi so may have need for axle work some day. Thanks for the phone no.

 

Glad to see you guys looking out for each other and trying to help each other with this transport issue. Scum like that should be run out of business. Hopefully folks can spread the word on other forums about this jerk and prevent one of our car/truck loving brethen from making the same mistake.

 

A couple years ago I was at a farm changing a spindle on a fertilizer truck that broke off. While I was there, the guy had a spindle on his work bench and I asked him what it was for. He said he broke the spindle off of his manure spreader and it was a replacement. I looked at it and realized it was the same spindle that is common on semi trailers. I asked what was involved with changing that spindle using the one he bought. He said it was a pain in the butt. He had to get a certified welder to come out since he didn't trust his welding to be good enough. Had to cut the broken off piece of the original spindle out of the housing, then measure the inside diameter of the tube, and take the spindle he bought to a machine shop and cut down the tail to make it fit. I told him I could install one of mine that would work just fine and would take me about 2 hours. He returned his spindle and I fixed him up. Since I was already there to fix his fertilizer truck, I gave him a good deal. Being raised on a farm, I have a soft spot for farmers.

 

As earlier said, no you don't. You have security so far up your *** all the time, you can taste their ties and tell them what they had for lunch.

I even had one of the escorts that had to ride with me once tell me I could not smoke. It is my damn truck. I stopped in the middle of the interstate and told him to get his *** out. I got wrote up for that one. HAHAHAHAHA. Big deal.

Oh, they had a bunch of can do's and cannot do's. There was places that you were forbidden to stop, like TA truckstops. Never could figure out that one, maybe they were afraid of the lot lizards corrupting their escorts.

One of the funniest was driving with cruise control on. Hell, I use to drive with cruise on, one foot out the window and one propped up on the dash, the seat raised all of the way up and the steering wheel tilted all the way up, running at 90+ and do it for hours on end.

I do have to say that 351 stroker I had in that '85 4x4 would run its *** off and get 25 mpg doing it.