How the pros change an axle

[cookie]

Axle Change

By Richard Cook

 

At San Carlos Transmission Rudy and Jefte are pros. Subarus seem to be attracted to this little family shop and mine was the second Forester there that day for a life extension. The other one was an automatic and I’ll give you Rudy’s comment on those at the end.

 

When changing an axle these folks make it look easy and I was out of there in a half hour.

 

Jefte put the car on the lift and pulled the wheel with an air wrench.

 

He pulled the axle nut with a large air wrench without straightening the lock in about two seconds.

 

Next he spun the wheel to align the axle pin holes and got the usual 3/16 punch to remove it. The driver’s side has good clearance so no need for an extension.

 

Jefte marked the upper bolt that attaches the strut to the hub assembly since it controls alignment for camber. No need to mark the lower one before removal as it is just a bolt. This is easier than damaging the boot by removing the ball joint.

 

Jefte then removed the inner connector that is held by the pin, arranged the axle so it would not hit the tranny and used a plastic mallet to knock the axle out of the hub. He was helped here by the fact that I had used a hub puller and sledge hammer a couple of weeks ago and greased the spline when I installed the new axle that was defective. I was almost envious, it took me most of a day to remove that axle before.

 

The new axle was branded Cardan. Please don’t buy these even though they are a well known name. The first one I got knocked worse than a lonely ghost and the second knocks like the recently departed, much less. The Cardan did not have a beveled side on the connector to drive the pin into. I had spent a half hour matching splines, but Rudy says no problem. It only goes one way and if you put it on and the hole is not straight just turn it the other direction, it only goes one way, or nit should….. It’s easy to see that he has not put it on wrong, pounded it in and got it stuck like some folks. He holds the light above it and looks for alignment like I did before pounding in the pin. I’ll be looking for another axle in posts you guys have made since Subaru here wants $200 and core for a rebuilt.

 

At this point both father and son worked together for a bit. They put the axle on an angle and worked the hub in first. Then while dad aligned the connector and pin holes Jefte moved the hub assembly up to the strut and locked it in with a bolt. Teamwork!

 

Then after being sure that the pin is aligned on the inner end it is driven home.

 

The alignment bolt is installed and set to the white paint marks and both strut to hub bolts are tightened with an air wrench.

 

The axle nut is installed by hand, tightened by air wrench and torqued to 150 with the brake held. The nut is staked with a punch.

 

Please note that Jefte cleans any contamination off the brake rotor before installing the wheel.

 

The wheel is installed the car let down and the wheel nuts torqued to 80.

 

Rudy says he sees three common failure points on Subaru automatics way before a tranny is worn out.

The first is the failure of the high inner drum seal. There are kits to help this including one that has an inner spring forcing Teflon type seal out. There are actually a couple of different kits that fix this in different ways.

The second is in the valve body when little moving spacers break up. There are better spacers to cure this.

The third is the radiator automatic tranny cooler blocks. This is one you could fix at home with the addition of a tranny cooler. This can actually stop the car from catching a gear as it cannot get fluid circulation.

You can also wear out all the usual stuff, but before clutches and the duty solenoid fail a lot of miles tend to be on the car. The solenoid can also fail in the open position which can mean you get no pressure at all.

Rudy says change the fluid at 50,000 mile intervals and do yourself a favor by installing a tranny cooler.

 

If you need Subaru transmission work in the San Carlos CA area the shop’s phone number is (650) 622-9210.

[cookie]

By the way I took pictures of the entire process but it seems they are too big to upload. I'll see if I can reduce the size to get them to work to make this a bit easier for other folks.

[TheSubaruJunkie]

Yup, thats how you do it.

 

Its even easier on a older subaru as there are no camber or alignment issues to worry about.

 

-Brian

[Hocrest]

Yup, thats how you do it.

 

Its even harder on a older subaru as there are 20 years of rust and corrosion to deal with.

 

-Brian

 

Fixed your post;)

 

btw, you suck for not living in the north east and having to deal with this crap :-p

 

Cookie, sounds like you found a good shop. That's a hard thing to do sometimes.

[cookie]

Now if I can just figure out how to reduce the pictures they may help somebody.

I used to live in Maine and we had the torch out for anything under the car. I may have gotten my share of corrosion on the axle to hub joint that I removed earlier. This car lived in DC for a while and got salt a few times but not a lot.

When I removed the axle the first time I nearly toasted a hub puller and without my six pound sledge I'd still be working on it.

[PAezb]

Now if I can just figure out how to reduce the pictures they may help somebody.

 

It would certainly help me, I can give you a email in a PM to send them to me if you're willing to do it.

 

In preparing to replace the axle(s) on my 96 OBW, a question I have is how likely is the possiblity the splines in the hub will be shot, and that I'll have to replace the hub or bearing itself? What other parts should I be prepared to replace when doing this job?

 

The car has 225K

[cls1000]

i just swapped in a rebuilt axel in my 01...$49.99 from autosupermarket, works like a champ! very easy diy as well.....shouldn't take more than an hour or 2 depending on the tools you have....

[cookie]

PAezb,

 

I've got the pix here on my work computer. Send me an email to cookr@samtrans .com and I'll forward these to you. They also contain the first draft of the article which I had Rudy proof read and correct on the automatic tranny stuff.

If you are more computer literate than I am and can figure out how to post pix that would be good.

[johnceggleston]

I have is how likely is the possiblity the splines in the hub will be shot, and that I'll have to replace the hub or bearing itself? What other parts should I be prepared to replace when doing this job?

 

The car has 225K

 

there is no chance the the splines are bad. there is a chance they are rusty and a bear to remove, you may need a puller from an auto parts loan-a-tool program. but you won't know until you get there. use lots of PB blaster, let it soak. keep it off the rotor.

 

if the bearing isn't making noise now, it will not change as a result of the swap UNLESS, you remove axle nut with the car on the ground. putting weight on the hub/bearing assembly without the axle nut on is bad, bad, bad. you can break it loose with the tire on the ground but not very much. it's really safer to have some one pushing the brake pedal while removing the axle nut with the wheel off the ground. or air wrench.

 

i recommend anti-seize for the splines so it's easier next time.

 

it's very straight forward, except for the rust issue. be sure to mark the strut bolt as mentioned in the write up. if you had an extra roll pin (for the axle to trans connection ) that might save you some head ache but lots of people reuse the existing one so it's not necessary. make sure to use a 3/16" punch to remove it. too large will get stuck, too small will booger the pin.

 

gyood luck.

[cookie]

I'll sure echo that rusty and a bear to remove part. I've only done a few of these but an east coast Legacy a freind brought by to fix up came right out with a few taps. With my Forester you would have thought they were welding in. Regardless of that when they finally came loose the splines were fine.

[Kilroy]

Here's a quick and easy way to make your photos smaller, either in physical size or file size:

 

http://www.shrinkpictures.com/

 

If you want the photo to stay the same size, but the file to be smaller, choose to lower the image quality.

 

Or do it yourself quickly and easily on your own PC (choose Image Resizer in the box on the right):

 

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

 

If you don't have a 3/16" punch (7/32" is the exact size required), look for a long necked Robertson #2 screwdriver. The neck will usually be the perfect size and the head will catch all 4 corners on the spring pin.

[cookie]

Thanks Kilroy,

 

I'll give that a go!

[Virrdog]

This will in general make your digital picture experience much more enjoyable:

 

http://picasa.google.com/

 

It very nicely puts your photos so you can look at ALL of them at one time categorized with nice previews. It also has the power to make common corrections, cropping, resizing, and batch renaming. Very good program.

[avk]

The correct punch size is 6mm, the pros should have had it in their set. The strut-to-knuckle nuts

are one-time use, but I guess they know better. Same for tightening those nuts with an air wrench.

I'm just saying.

[TheSubaruJunkie]

Fixed your post;)

 

 

The EA81's and EA82's require only 1 nut and 1 bolt be removed. The nut holding the CV in (36mm castle nut). And a 14mm bolt that connects locks the ball joint into the steering knuckle. Both should be rust free and have no corrosion, if so... impact FTW!

 

I grew up in Alaska, the north east has NOTHING on the salted roads of the '80's that is Alaska Believe me, i know all about rust and corrosion.

 

-Brian