Axle Splines a Little Rough??

[3yearcuda]

I removed my axle shafts to swap to new 4.5 axles from the 4.0 bolt pattern. When i pulled out the axles from my current 3.23 gear,8.75 diff,489 case, the ends of the axles are a little rough. By a little rough, I mean the spline on the axle ends look like there was something in the splines or they didnt match up the best and wore the ridges of the splines a bit. Tough to explain, i know. When i feel into the cone style limited slip with my hand, the first spline feels rough but the inner spline feels like it should. I have new $500 buck axles coming and I am a little aprehensive about about putting brand new axles into the centre section splines.
Has anybody run into this before. Do i have an issue with the two splines in the centre section being off just a bit, causing the axles splines to bind a bit.
Appreciate any feedback anyone might have. Thanks.

 

[Bad Sport]

A picture would go a long way here.

 

[3yearcuda]

Yep, true enough. Tks.
Like i mentioned, only the first spline in the cone style limited slip feels a bit rough. The inside spline feels fine. I dont get it.

 

[fishy68]

Going by the pics of the axles I have to say that's an odd one. I've pulled numerous rearends apart and haven't seen axles do that. I wonder if it was ran low on gear lube at some time in it's life which caused overheating and pulled metal chunks off?

Can you get a pic of the side gear splines? If there as bad as the axle splines I don't think I'd put $500 axles in it as the side gears may break and ruin the new axles.

Are both sides like that?

 

[SGBARRACUDA]

I've seen the teeth get sharp from wear after being in a SG for a long time. Is this what your seeing?

 

[3yearcuda]

I bought the SG off of ebay and said it was newly rebuilt. I have only put about 700 miles on the car since putting the 8 3/4 in. I'm pretty sure the axles were in decent shape when i put them in. The pics of the axle are from the right side/passenger side with the adjuster nut, but both axles are similarilly kinda rough. The first four pictures are of the drivers side which seems to be worse than the passenger side. Its almost as if the inner spline is of better quality that the outer within the diff, and i can feel a definite difference running my finger from the rough outside spline to the smooth inside spline.
I may just have to take it to a driveline shop, i suppose. I was just hoping to change the crown and pinion from 3.23 to 3.73 myself and slide the axles back in, but may have to spend a bit of inspection dough.

 

[fishy68]

They don't look right but it's not real easy to tell everything by pics on the net. Since you bought it off of E-bay it's entirely possible the SG was a mix and match of parts from several units. A lot of guys do that, save up all the old broken sure-grips and use whatever parts fit to make one that works. That's not always bad as long as you match things up correctly and use real good parts but you get some guys that throw questionable parts in just to make it a saleable piece. If you have a driveline shop near you drop by and show it to them and see what they say. Someone with experience looking at it in person should know right away if it's a problem. Take the axles too so they can see what happened to them.

BTW: have you set up gears before? Got all the tools to do it?

 

[Supershafts]

Either that was full of water at one time or it was put together filthy, or both, one of the side gears look as if someone hammered a axle into it otherwise that is the result of dirt and or rust and stuffing things together

 

[3yearcuda]

Well, took the centre section and axles to my local drive train shop. He thought the axles may have been installed with debris in the splines of the limited slip, but wasnt overly concerned. I had him take the cone style SG apart and found that the pinion gears had a chunk out of a tooth on both sides but the side gear teeth were ok, and there was no washer (see left blue crude drawing of washer) on the differential case side under the side gear. So, the cone was riding on metal to metal and chewed up the bottom of the differential case. He said this is a classic case of people taking 5 or 6 cone style sure grips and making one or two good ones, or at least half a$$'ed good, and then flogging them on e-bay to poor unsuspecting suckers, like myself.
So.....long story short. Buyer beware when thinking your getting that "rebuilt" SG off of some A$$hole on E-bay. Now i could have bought the rebuild kit, such as it is, machined the cones, added spacers, cleaned up the differential case, but in the end for a few bucks less still had a less desirable cone style diff. No sense throwing good money after bad, so i ordered up a Eaton True Track, which will accomodate my new axles, and hopefully will never have to mess with the back half of the drive line again.

 

[SGBARRACUDA]

How much do you want for the old one?

 

[harleydartguy]

don't worry about it. I have seen axles come out of 8 second drag cars that look like that...

 

[3yearcuda]

Not sure SGBARRACUDA. What's it worth?