It broken again, this time for real.

Yup guys, sadly this one is the real deal. No bad grounds on this time.

It was fun driving it while it lasted, and I was around 50 miles short of hitting 64k too. Oh well.

So what busted? The stinking axle connecting flange again! But this time on the right side. When is this damn car gonna give in?

After the bad ground issue was taken care of, I was driving this car all over the place. Well while on the freeway I noticed that the car would want to pull right when I got on the throttle, and then back left when I let up. It did the same thing when the left flange went bad.

Last Saturday I went to a coworkers house for a barbecue. On the way home I was hearing this scraping. It sounded like I was dragging a tin can. I stopped the car to see what the heck was under the car, and nothing. So I drove home no problems. Well when I was pulling into my neighborhood I'm hearing the scraping again, and it is coming from the right rear. Pull the car into the garage and have a look again. Still I can't find a damn thing, so I decided to wait until the morning when I had better light to see. The next day I pull the right rear wheel and start having a look. I don't find anything but do notice that the axle connecting flange is sticking out just a little bit from the inner seal. Well as soon as I saw that I figured it was a wheel bearing that was ready to let loose, but it wasn't. There was some play in the axle when I went to turn the rotor by hand, but I couldn't find what was making the doggon scraping sound. Hmmmmmmm????

So Sunday I had my oldest son remove the caliper and break rotor. I looked all around and still couldn't find what in the heck was making the scraping sound. Well at that point I figured for sure it was the bearing, especially since the flange was moved out a little. So I had my boy disconnect the outer CV joint from the flange, and then we watched the replay of the F1 race.

Monday I disconnected the wheel hub from the upper and lower a-arms, the sway bar, shock, and then removed it. The last time I delt with this problem it was because of an under tightend ring nut. Well it was the same deal again. Luckly the ring nut was peened, because I could wiggle the nut with my fingers. I unpeened and removed the ring nut, and found out what was making the scraping sound. It was a combination of the ring nuts rubbing on the bushing, and the bushing scrapping on the shaft for the axle flange. It was all inside the hub which is why I couldn't see anything.

Well that isn't the end of it.

See because whom ever the idiot was that put the hub together didn't properly torque down the ring nut, I now have not only a ruined axle connecting flange, but also a ruined axle flange shaft. There are ribbed teeth on both the flange and shaft, that are flat on the top of the teeth. Well the teeth on both of them got ground to a point. The flange had been loose enough to wear down the teeth, on both shaft and flange. Kind of like when you use the wrong size wrench on a nut and the nut gets rounded.

You guys probably remember I was hearing some chattering from my diff that I fixxed by changing gear oils. Well even after I changed the oil every now and then I was hearing a bit of noise in the right rear. I figured it was because the oil hadn't made it's way into the cross plates yet. Well now I know it was because of the stinking flange rubbing the crap out of the shaft. Maybe the extra grip the differential was making added to the preasure the flange was making??? What ever the case, they really need to ban wine drinking durring lunch breaks at the factory.

I hope I can get lucky again and find not only a good used axle connecting flange but a flange shaft too, and at a nice discount.

Wish me luck fella's

 

Thanks for the support guys.

Yeah it is funny how this stupid car has turned me into sort of a 348 "expert". Since I had tackled this problem already on the left side, I had it out and apart in around an hour. I was even taking my time, wearing flip flops and shorts. It's a good thing I can do my own work. I can't imagine having to pay the piper to fix my 348. If I did I would have bought it twice already. On the flip side the brotherhood gets the benfit of my problems. So some good does come out of this. But yeah, it is getting REALLY old.

 

Yup, Stooge time it is.

But as for when, I dunno? I called my usual places yesterday looking for good used parts, and they didn't have any. So the search continues. Hopefully I can find them soon.

 

Well if the Stooges are getting together, I'll just bring the jacked up parts down for some show and tell. Or better yet, why don't you guys come up.

What do you say, Thursday or Friday?

 

Almost five years, and yeah, hahahahahaha, I bought it at what I thought was a "cheap" price.

 

Just wanted to give you guys an update on the car. I got it all put back together and back on the road on Halloween. Total cost was about $680.

 

I bought both of them used. No sence in paying insane prices for new units, when good used ones will do.