Kintore

Well, something finally happened to the ole girl.

275 thousand miles and something went.

At a light and accelerated rather hard, all of a sudden I hear a LOUD crack sound and it started to vibrate really bad whenever you were on the throttle. So I immediatly pulled over and checked it out. Turns out I snapped the two main rear axle supports I guess you would call them. They are still there just all cracked to heck and a little rusted.

I just wanted to know if this has happened before? Any suggestions? Ideas?

Thanks alot guys, I could really use your help, I know this is the one place to come. Now if only I could borrow Doc browns car and go back in time....

ewong

????

whats an axle support?

Pics?

If you are referring to the UPPER trailing link towers that are welded to the axle... I hear those break under hard wheeling...

DeathCougar

iTrader: (23)

If you have a rusty undercarriage (ie live where they salt the roads) its not uncommon for things like that to happen. Time to get a new axle housing from a wrecking yard, and swap all the guts.

Lysmachia

Oh man what a Pain!!! I just went through the axle housing swap. At least you probably don;t have a huge lift already gusseted and welded to it - which made it 10x worse for me.

Kintore

Can you weld it back into place? It broke about a inch off the axle.

Kintore

Well I took a more in depth look at it, seems I can get it welded if I want too. Im just not sure how strong it would be vs stock. And it was the strut towers, about an inch off the axle. Along with trying to keep it in line with the rest of the frame, not sure how my mech would do that. Or I could do it myself.

Adam F

I'm a bit confused. The rear has SHOCKS, not struts. And the "tower" is the top part of the mount, but you said an inch above the axle, which would indicate the lower mount.

Either way, as long as its the rear end, just weld it up and go. No need to replace the housing just for that. The shock mount does not effect the alignment of the axle in any way, so theres no way to mess that up. What I would do is cut the old shock mount tabs off, and make or buy some new ones, and weld them on. Just eyeball it, get it straight, and weld it up. Anybody who is competent enough to operate a welder can do this.

mjwalfredo

Pardon my ignorance but what is the strut tower mount on the rear axle? Are you refering to the mount that bolts the shock absorber to the axle?

Edit: Whoops, should have refreshed the thread after I lost my connection...

Adam F

Ok, I looked at the lower shock mount, and it is a little bit different than I thought. It might take a little re-working, but shouldn't be too difficult. If your mount isn't in too terrible of shape, you might be able to re-use it.