Just had to do the rear seals on my 95 4runner. Thinking it would be a quick job getting my axles out I set to work, and quickly sank into to trouble. The passenger side axle was stuck. It ended up taking me 2 hours to get it out, prying and pulling. The drivers side slid out with one finger. After replacing the seals the drivers side of course slid in like butter and the passenger side had to be forced back in. It wouldn't line up with housing which was up and to the left, (the direction it would go on impact).

So what should I do? Supposedly this truck had something happen to it although I the previous owner couldn't say what. I got it under the impression that the front end was damaged and it needed a 1200 dollar frame job as the frame was out of whack. After inspecting the front end I found the passenger side control arm was bent and no evidence of the frame having any damage. I replaced the control arm and the front end is now fine except I need to do the bushings on all the control arms to get an alignment and remove some play in the front end. (yes I know what a bitch its is going to be but I have access to a press).

I'm worried now that there could be frame damage and replacing the axle housing isn't going to fix the problem. The axle looked fine but I haven't checked the diff., not sure if I will need to replace both since the axle is wedged so tight into the diff...

Anyone experience this before?

 

Does the wheel rotate smoothly? check hub for radial runout?

 

bearings were fine, I didnt notice and problems while driving the truck, so the wheel seems to rotate smoothly. I wouldn't have thought there was a problem if I hadn't needed to do the seals. how would I check for radial run out? Thanks

 

Shaft is probably bent itself.

 

i believe the shaft would break before bending. no radial run out, no vibration issues...

 

you could pop the wheel off....and brake drum...and put a dial indicator with a magnetic base on the axle and measure if the hub is out of round...would indicate bent axle.

Now this video is for a marine engine output.....pretend its an axle flange. Kinda explains it.

 

Dont doubt it. Ibent one on my t100 and the shafts are MUCH larger than a regular pick up shaft.

 

Does the axle look bent? How are the rear tires wearing, any noticeably patterns (worn on the in side) ? An alignment shop can tell you if its bent if youre still unsure.

 

thanks for all the replies. The shaft itself doesn't look bent, and I spun it around quite a few times trying to line it up and in every position it lines up to the axle housing the same way, wrong. I believe that rules out a bent shaft.

the truck has brand new tires and I have not driven it more then from the place of purchase>home>to my shop to work on it, also took it and smogged it. Altogether I probably put 75 miles on it, enough to notice anything wrong, which I didn't besides the diff. fluid leaking, but not enough to cause any noticeable tire wear. There are of course issues in the front end to be addressed along with severely sagged rear springs which effected handling but no shimmy, vibration, noise in the back. I thought i was going to throw a few seals and springs in real quick and move on to the hard stuff in the front.

I guess my question is "can the rear axle housing be bent without effecting or being a cause of frame damage?" Considering the connection points I'm afraid it might be a sign of serious frame damage although how the heck would that happen? Also should I replace the rear diff. and axle on the side in question although it's likely there isn't a lot of miles on the truck since whatever happened and everything passes a visual inspection?

 

rear axle housing is bent. Seems to have been some type of impact such as running up onto rail or barrier. If you axle shaft does not slide out easily or pop out with a slide hammer something is wrong, and it warrants further investigation.

Pick-n-pull in my are (Nor-Cal), 71 bucks out the door for bare axle housing, including 6 dollar core charge. Takes some time to pull one, but sure beats the 400 bucks min. quoted else where for used and ready...

 

the symptoms do indicate a bent housing; it's similar to what I saw when my solid front axle housing was bent, I couldn't get the axle shaft out... the axle shaft was a bobby long unit, they are pretty strong, it wasn't bent... i farked up the housing itself going over whoops at glamis.

if it's all back together, i'd put the rear housing up on jackstands, and with someone in the cab, start the motor and put it in gear... if the axle shaft is bent, the wheel won't be rotating true, it'll wobble.

my money is on the axle shaft, they are much weaker than the housing... if the axle shafts are the same, what you could have done when you were putting it back together is to try and swap sides, just to see if the problem travels with the axle shaft itself.

i do recall reading claims that axle shafts can take a rotating "set", so you may not want to leave the sides swapped... or if you get a used replacement axle shaft, keep the sides as they were.

in the future, don't ever force the axle shaft in... when it didn't work, you should have tried swapping 'em over, if that is possible.