Rear Axle Play..how much?

jchochole

jchochole

Senior Member
Hey Guys,
I was looking over my new '26 and pulled a wheel off the rear to change a tire and gave the old rear axle a bit of a pull and push..it pops less than a 1/16" of an inch. Now I know that the safe thing to do it take it all apart and rebuild (winter project) but I wanted to ask...what do you fellers think? Should I drive and test her out around the block as is or get it up on blocks?

Thanks inadvance,
Jim from IL
 
Drive that puppie, it probably has some wear on the fiber washer in between the spiders and axle ends but thats not enuf to bother ya for now. Monte
 
Have you checked it yet to make sure the babbitt washers in the rear axle have been changed to bronze? If not it needs to come apart to verify. If you loose the babbitt washers you loose your brakes.
 
No, I haven't checked but the only way I know to do that is to rip it all apart. I wanted to see, from folks experience, if play under a certain degree is a decent smell-test?
 
You won't know until they break that the babbitt thrust washers are bad. They don't wear out they crumble. We had one do it last week. It is a known problem that you should address for safetys sake. My wife and I changed this one in a little over two hours. I can attest to the fact that you have no brakes when it fails.
 
Was browing through some old posts and this one caught my eye because of the rear axel oil/grease leak I had recently. Why would loosing the thrust bearings cause you to loose the brakes? Is it because the whole ring gear/carrier/axle assembly can move within the housing to the point where the drive shaft pinion disengages from the ring gear?

By the way, I replaced my rear axle felt seals with the modern neoprene seals. So far, no leaks. But I felt the outside of the axle tube around the area where the bearing rides after my last drive. The side that leaked felt noticably warmer than the side that didn't leak. Is the bearing worn out? I removed it, cleaned and repacked it with new grease when I first got the car, and the bearing seemed good to me. How can you tell when one is on its last legs?
 
"Is it because the whole ring gear/carrier/axle assembly can move within the housing to the point where the drive shaft pinion disengages from the ring gear?"

Yes.
 
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