36 Ford truck on Ranger

[willyD]

I sure do like your truck too! Good find on the bent axle! That would have been hard to run down if someone hadn't pointed out the slight wobble to the wheel!

[BlueNorther]

sounds like some time in it's life, it got slid into a curb a bit.

[DozerII]

Glad you found the problem, you could have been chasing that one for a long time.

[MercuryMac]

Thanks guys. Yes I could have been chasing that for a long time, I already have a couple of years into it and a lot of money.
Blue, I'm sure it's curb rash. My donor truck was beat up pretty badly by the P.O.. It looked like he kicked every tin panel in and ran into lots of snow banks. His girlfriend then took a Magic Marker and wrote little inscriptions on each ding, almost as if she was as proud as he was at his careless, rough, stupid and pointless atrocities.

[smallfoot]

Ya say he was a "pinball wizard"?

[MercuryMac]

Ya, a pinball wizard.
Well I spent most of the afternoon learning that I can't straighten a bent axle until it's real nice. I got it down to a third as bad as it was, but wasn't gaining anymore and at one point the axle shot out towards me and hit me mostly in the knee pad, but not quite all in the PPE. A new axle is coming in on the noon stage, [in the next couple of weeks].

[MercuryMac]

Well, the new axle came in and I got back to fixing. I have taken the old studs out of the bent axle and hammered them into the new one. The new studs were too long, and would reach right through the one inch spacer that I have on there, so I would have had to saw them all off.
The backing plate is back on and the wheel seal is yanked out, but the wheel bearing is really stuck in there.

[Torchie]

Seems like it would take more than curb rash to bend that axle. I had one on my GMC panel but the donor chassis had been in a roll over.
It took me a while to figure out it was just slightly bent because it kept going thru axle seals on that side only.
Getting hit in the knee sounds like something I would do Mac......Only I'd do it worse.
Torchie

[Old Iron]

[MercuryMac]

It turns out that when you get hit in the knee with a flying axle, your thinking changes. I no longer wanted to fix my old axle, I wanted to buy a new one. Also, I found out, there is nothing funny about getting bashed in the funny bone until you're sweating with pain.