Posted by Tim Holloway [108.162.219.127] on Saturday, November 05, 2016 at 16:54:02 :
First the question, then a story.
My 57 W-100 has the Dana 44 front axle. There are a pair of seals in close to the diff, and the way to replace them is to pull the carrier. I did that and removed the seals, only to find them completely different than the ones I had bought. The ones I had bought look sort of like a top hat, where the ones I removed are just normal seals. I got the numbers off the seals I removed and ordered a pair. I added the wrong seals to the ever growing pile of parts which were supposed to be right but are not. OK, I lied, I am going to tell the story before asking the question! Bear with me, it will all make sense by the end.
So this mornings task was to sandblast the front axle housing, a floor pan, the drive shaft, tie rod and a couple of misc. parts. Last night I made a plywood cover to keep grit out of the now open diff. hole. I bolted it on, sealed the ends of the axle tube and the pinion end. I am blasting merrily along when I see that under the crud the bearing shell bolt holes are through bored. OK, I guess I have some cleanup to do. I got everything blasted and set the axle up on horses to clean up and prime. I took the plywood cover off and it was like looking inside a black geode! EVERY surface inside the axle was coated in black beauty. Including the pinion and its bearings. Epic fail dude! Time to press the pinion out and start cleaning. 2 hours and 3 cans of carb clean, a roll of shop towels and lots of elbow grease and that axle is as clean as it has been in 59 years! Not how I had planned on spending my afternoon, but its done and primed now!
Now for the question. While cleaning around where the inner seals go, a flared steel tube fell out from behind where the seal goes. The parts book calls it a guide, but the axle is smaller in diameter than this piece. What is it guiding, and without it in there the seals I originally bought will work. Is there any reason why one setup is better than the other?
Thanks for wading through my ramblings!
Tim
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