Posted by Keith in Washington on Tuesday, February 12, 2002 at 10:53AM :
In Reply to: Will this work? posted by Andrew in Sudbury on Monday, February 11, 2002 at 4:26PM :
I consider full floating axles to be much superior. First the wheel and weight of the truck is fully supported by the wheel bearings (2 bearings)and not the axle. In fact the axle can be removed without disturbing the wheel bearings (i.e. the truck does not need to be supported to remove the axle.) I have removed the rear axles (and drive shaft)when I blew the differential. I then drove 200 mile home using the front drive axle (I did put dust covers over the axle hub ends). You can break an axle remove it and the other side and drive home on the front end. You will never do this with a non full floating axle. If you look at the flatfender PW the front and rear hubs are identical.
On non full floating axles there is usually 1 wheel bearing instead of two and the axle supports the vehicle weight. There will also be a C clip in the differential that holds the axle in place. If you loose the clip the axle, wheel and evereything attached will come out. I have seen this happen several times on the road. Never break a rear axle in one of these as you will be dead in the water where you are.
The full floater are just a much better axle in my opinion.
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