Rear Axle replacement

[ITWrencher]

So the wifes 2002 continues to bleed me dry of money. The rear bearings seem to finally have given up the ghost. She said there was a "noise" so I went for a ride with her and once you got up to 45+ mph I could hear the tell tale whine of unhappy bearings coming from the rear of the truck. So I ordered all the parts including a complete empty axle housing from Arizona that is pristine as her unit is very rusty and leaking right through the back cover. Also ordered new brake backing plates for the same reason.


Now my question is about swapping over to the new axle housing. Is it as simple as just unbolting the old pumpkin and bolting it on to the new housing with a new gasket? I really hope it is because I don't want to have to mess around with measuring and backlash and all that stuff. Also picked up the Harbor Freight 20 ton press to do all this work as it was on sale last weekend. Pretty nice tool for the price.

 

[NachesPass4x4]

Yes, it's a nuts and bolts job.

 

[brillo_76]

Is it the wheel bearings ? or the 3rd member? I am just curious what all parts are bad. Its a bolt project. Like others stated. If it ran low or out of the gear grease, your 3rd member, you sadly may have damaged the 3rd member bearings as well. Check out the gear grease when you drain it. If its full of metal or chucks of it its not a good sign:-( I bought a drum to drum for my 2001 sport. I saved the old housing for another project on mine as mine housing was only rusty on the back plate on the axle housing. I will just weld a new back plate on the old housing. Since yours was really super rusty a new housing was the right way to go. .

 

[T4R2014]

I would've just ordered an entire unite drum to drum from AZ, those backing plates are money. This is a bolt in deal. Make sure you use 01-02 axle shafts and all your wheel bearing parts correspond to that year range.

 

[3bears]

It is all bolt in, others have suggested that it might have been better to go drum to drum with an entire unit. When I blew a pinion gear, that is what I did, drum to drum. Luckily I found one local. ( well a days drive round trip to find a locker with the right gear ratio)
However drum to drum is very heavy and imagine shipping would be very high

 

[brillo_76]

It is all bolt in, others have suggested that it might have been better to go drum to drum with an entire unit. When I blew a pinion gear, that is what I did, drum to drum. Luckily I found one local. ( well a days drive round trip to find a locker with the right gear ratio)
However drum to drum is very heavy and imagine shipping would be very high

Yes there is quite of bit of freight costs for shipping a complete rear end. I had yard in CA send me a pile of parts when I had them ship my complete one. It came on a truck that you had to fork lift the the pallet off when it arrived at my house. Luckily, I have access to fork lifts.. I did this in 2017 so the costs i paid would no where near be accurate for today's pricing nightmares.

 

[phattyduck]

Seems like you could make a business out of taking a loads of frames and rear axles up to the rust belt from down south...

-Charlie

 

[T4R2014]

Seems like you could make a business out of taking a loads of frames and rear axles up to the rust belt from down south...

-Charlie

Better yet, plenty of clean 2WDs down there. Plenty of rotted 4WDs up here. You could find cosmetically identical trucks and move the running gear from the rotbox to the 2WD.

 

[phattyduck]

Better yet, plenty of clean 2WDs down there. Plenty of rotted 4WDs up here. You could find cosmetically identical trucks and move the running gear from the rotbox to the 2WD.

You KNOW I'll buy a good condition 2WD and swap parts if something happens to my current 4WD... The 2WD gems down here aren't much more expensive than the 2WD beaters.

-Charlie