I bought a solid axle housing a while back and a set of axle shafts. I will be assembling a solid axle for something (not really sure yet). I just want to go through the exercise of building the axle, so whatever I put it under, I will be able to at least be somewhat familiar with the teardown procedures in case anything catastrophic happens in the field.

Anyway, before I put a lot of blood sweat and tears into prepping the axle housing for the build, I figure it might be a good idea to make sture the housing is straight or true.

Does it need to be totally nuts on, or is there "wiggle room"?

Any hints? I tried searching this forum, but nothing pertinant came up. I don't frequent a lot of other forums so my search database is small. Also, I have gone through a lot of the SAS threads here and I remember one had a picture of a guy shooting a laser through the axle to check trueness, but I did not bookmark the thread.

Any advise would be appreciated.

 

i work at an auto body repair shop and i know from experince(helping the suspenion specalist) that the only way to tell if a solid fornt axle is striaght is to check the alingment on the vehcile. i'm not sayin that there aren't anyways to see if it's sort of sraight or not, im just sayin that it has to be on an alingment machine to be sure it's straight. so good luck

 

thread off Pirate: http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showt...t=bent+housing

i used an angle finder on the knuckle balls to "check" mine, as well as throwing a third and shafts in it... if the shafts spin okay, it's fairly straight. there's no good way to check other than putting everything on it (knuckles out) and measuring from there. i was pretty sure mine was straight before i started gusseting it, but not 100%. lucky for me, it was (close as it's gonna get, at least) once all was said and done.

if it is straight, gusset it. doesn't take much to bend one... i learned the hard way.

 

Thanks for the link!

 

Yeah I got the "you really never know" answer to this same question some time back. I think on another forum. I just ended up taking the plunge without really knowing for sure. I like some of those ideas on the Pirate link. Seems like you could at least get some idea.

 

I am glad I read this thread, I was going to pics up my front axle in 3 days.

 

I've seen guys use laser levels with the housing stripped to get a good approximation.

 

did the same thing to mine works great
i was concerned after the axle my buddy got for his sas was bent at the ball did not notice it untill we were taking out the inner seals one of the seals was mangled threw the lazer on it and it was off 3/16ths