Front Axel Shaft Problem!!

[brendan88mj]

So my front half shaft on the drivers side apears to have walked out a good couple centimeters. Anyone heard of this happening before? It makes a terrible clicking noise when you start moving from a stop.

[ComancheKid45]

Walked out?....are you sure the dust cover hasn't just moved? At worst it sounds like you may have a unit bearing failure. Jack up the front end and rotate the LF tire and see if you can pinpoint the noise to start ;)

[mvusse]

Terrible clicking sound makes me think a broken u joint.

[brendan88mj]

It only clicks when you start moving. U-joints are all good. You can see on the drivers side the tire sticks out noticably more than the passenger side.

[ftpiercecracker1]

Unit bearing.

[Eagle]

Even a bad unit bearing can't make a tire stick out "noticeably." Do you have a lift? If so, do you have an adjustable track bar?

 

By all means, jack it up and check the hub/bearing unit, but I suspect something else is going on. And please post whether or not you have a lift, an adjustable track bar, what tire size you are running and what wheels you are running.

[mvusse]

And pictures can absolutely help.

[FrankTheDog]

If its the same jeep as the one in your avatar it's more than likely your unit bearing.

Oversized tires and mud wear them out pretty fast.

[Eagle]

If its the same jeep as the one in your avatar it's more than likely your unit bearing.

Oversized tires and mud wear them out pretty fast.

 

Big tires certainly accelerate wear on the hub/bearing units, but ...

 

... a couple of centimeters is almost an inch. The hub/bearing unit is held together by the nut on the stub shaft compressing the bearings against the shoulder on the stub shaft. The hub absolutely CANNOT separate by anything remotely approaching an inch unless it turns to powder.

[brendan88mj]

Well my front wheels won't engage into 4 wheel drive. My guess is that the axle needs a complete rebuild

[88whitemanche]

Rebuild? Have you done the cad delete?

 

http://comancheclub.com/topic/17377-cad-fix-1/

[Eagle]

Well my front wheels won't engage into 4 wheel drive. My guess is that the axle needs a complete rebuild

 

The XJ and MJ (and the YJ, TJ, etc) don't have locking hubs. The axle shafts are always engaged to the wheels. The YJ Wranglers and the early XJs and MJs with the 231 transfer case used a split axle shaft on the right side, with a sliding coupler like a transmission synchronizer ring, to engage or disconnect the front axle in 4WD.

 

Please answer the questions I asked in post #6.

[yxmj]

 

Well my front wheels won't engage into 4 wheel drive. My guess is that the axle needs a complete rebuild

 

The XJ and MJ (and the YJ, TJ, etc) don't have locking hubs. The axle shafts are always engaged to the wheels. The YJ Wranglers and the early XJs and MJs with the 231 transfer case used a split axle shaft on the right side, with a sliding coupler like a transmission synchronizer ring, to engage or disconnect the front axle in 4WD.

 

Please answer the questions I asked in post #6.

X 10  there is more happening here if your wheel is the 2 cm out as you said

[brendan88mj]

Yes I do have a lift and an adjustable trac bar. The axle we be replaced next weekend (got a functioning axle for free!) :thumbsup: When it gets pulled out I'll take it apart and find the real story behind my problems.  

[Eagle]

I suspect the answer will be that you went to the effort of replacing the axle for nothing. Does the new axle have the vacuum disconnect?

[carnuck]

Broken balljoint?

 

Edit: I meant to say tracbar end bracket pulling away from the frame and not balljoint

[Rockfrog]

Sunspension (Trac bar) needs re-adjusting. The suspension has settled, or shifted and now the axle is being pulled to the drivers side (like it would under droop).

 

Start by loosening the Trac bar, LCA and UCA bolts, bounce the front end and then retighten the LCA's then UCA's and finally the tracbar. Make xsure the vehicle is on the ground on it's own weight while doing this.

 

 

If the Ball joint was responsible for the shift it would only affect one side, and it would be quite obvious if it was out that much ... the wheel would be at an angle or there would be blatant broken parts.

 

If the Hub was the cause ... again tehre would be a significant angle issue at the wheel.

 

The design of the axle and suspension kinda prevents one wheel from shifting over to one side that much without a blatant failure point. In order for the axle to shift and push the tire out ... the hub and brake caliper would have to fail, or the knuckle would have to seperate from the axle.

[brendan88mj]

The new axle I got is out of 87 comanche that is a parts vehicle on my fathers property. I'm also getting all new control arms so to me it makes sense to just replace the axle and control arms all at once sense this one is giving me troubles. When i put on my new control arms and axle I will also adjust my tracbar. If my tracbar isnt adjusted correctly it still wouldnt explain the noises I am hearing.