nfarrar
New member
A few weeks ago I bent my front axle. I disassembled everything, took the axle off, and brought it to a professional to straighten, sleeve & add some welded bracing. I'm attempting to reinstall it, but am having trouble getting everything to line up. Not seeing much information out there on this process; lots on replacing axle shafts and such, but not on reinstalling a fully disconnected axle.
I've gone through a couple attempts to get this back on myself, but things just don't seem to line up correctly. I've got some photos to show it's current state, here: axle_alignment.
Currently, it's sitting as follows:
As you can see from the pictures, when the axle is sitting like this:
I've tried several times get everything reattached by starting where things would fit, then trying to reposition for alignment ... last night I got everything bolted in except the upper control arms. By tilting the axle so that the rear of the diff case was slightly elevated I was able to get the outsides of the brackets to line up with the upper control arm and insert the bolt, but the insides of both were off and the axle couldn't be repositioned at that point, so I couldn't get the bolts all the way through (I was also nervous that forcing it like that could cause damage, so I didn't - not that I'm sure I could have).
So I'm currently at a loss. Not sure exactly what to do. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Relink to album: Axle Alignment Photos.
I've gone through a couple attempts to get this back on myself, but things just don't seem to line up correctly. I've got some photos to show it's current state, here: axle_alignment.
Currently, it's sitting as follows:
- I've got the drive shaft reconnected, sitting level with the differential, and the bolts are torqued to specs (I didn't reapply loctite though).
- I've got the coil springs installed (with a teraflex 1.5" leveling kit, which included coil spacers and extended-length sway bar end-links) and I've aligned the them on both sides so that the springs are sitting with correct vertical orientation.
- I've got everything else currently disconnected (trackbar, sway bar end-links, control arms)
- axle is currently sitting on a couple of 3-ton jack stands and i'm using a 3-ton floor jack to reposition it
As you can see from the pictures, when the axle is sitting like this:
- both lower control arms appear to be about 0.5" too short for the brackets to line up correctly (Note: the driver side is the original, the passenger side lower control arm is a Mopar replacement from Quadratec)
- both upper control arms appear to be about 0.5" too short for the brackets to line up correctly) (Note: the driver side is the original, the passenger side upper control arm is a Mopar replacement from Quadratec)
- the front track bar is just slightly too short to align properly for the bolt to fit in
I've tried several times get everything reattached by starting where things would fit, then trying to reposition for alignment ... last night I got everything bolted in except the upper control arms. By tilting the axle so that the rear of the diff case was slightly elevated I was able to get the outsides of the brackets to line up with the upper control arm and insert the bolt, but the insides of both were off and the axle couldn't be repositioned at that point, so I couldn't get the bolts all the way through (I was also nervous that forcing it like that could cause damage, so I didn't - not that I'm sure I could have).
So I'm currently at a loss. Not sure exactly what to do. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Relink to album: Axle Alignment Photos.
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