Rear axle is hard to turn

luvmyclassics

luvmyclassics

Senior Member
I put new seals in my rear axle. now the drivers side is very hard to turn by hand. If I use the wheel studs for leverage with a stick it does turn. There are no leaks and no noise. Is this a problem?
 
Emergency brake dragging?
Rub some chalk on brake shoes and see where they are rubbing, if at all?
Keyway is OK?
Drum rubbing against backing plate? (Hard to believe.)
Brakes need adjusting?
Transmission not in neutral?
 
If you replaced both seals and one is much tighter than the other it ought to be investigated.

Mart.
 
If the one side is harder to turn then what about the drive pinion? Is this a banjo type from an early Ford, a Ford type from a shoe box car, A Dana from an F1 or Mercury, or a Timken from a larger truck? Folks have to be more specific. Even a banjo with a Columbia overdrive is different than a regular banjo.
 
I'd like to know what seal or seals were replaced. If you pulled the axles out, how were the axle bearings. The side gears & spider gears allow the axles to turn independently from the ring & pinion to a point unless there is something going on in the differential carrier. If the pinion seal was replaced, the pinion bearing preload may have been affected. There should have been no effect on the carrier bearings.

There are several different seals for the input pinion on the Dana 44 and the right one has to be used depending on the parts that exist there. They can be converted to the late type with the right combination of parts if it had an early type.
 
The axle bearings and oil seals were replaced. The ring and pinion and the carrier were left alone.
The pinion seal was replaced so the pre-load may have been affected. Not sure how I should have set the pre-load or how I can check it now.
 
Pre-load can be tricky. I'm not that familiar with the Dana preload procedure, but should be fairly easy to find. I'm more familiar with the crush washer type of setup.
 
This should turn easy, especially if nothing was done to the rearend. Try switching axles. Inspect bearings. I'm assuming the drums are off. I have had brand new bearings that were no good.
 
Pulling the axles out enough to disengage the side gears will allow a check of the ring & pinion movement and function. The pinion bearing preload is determined by a spacer shim/shims between the two bearings. If the front bearing was not removed then is should be OK. The pinion should have no shake and have a light drag on used bearings. The differential carrier will also be in play so it is hard to measure the bearing preload this way. It should turn by hand though with no play. If a seal was used other than the original part then it may have some binding going on there. Put one axle back in place at a time without bolting it up and feel what rotational force it takes to turn it. tighten one side and see if the torque to move it changes. Loosen that side and repeat the procedure on the other side. You should be able to narrow it down this way.

If you haven't pulled the back cover off, then you might get a new gasket & check out the spider/side gear gear movement & ring & pinion condition while your at it. All it will cost is a gasket and some new lube which it likely needs anyway unless you already serviced it. The Dana 41/44 is not a bad axle. Ford used them for light pickups & earlier 50s Mercury cars so it was considered heavy duty.
 
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