Hello, I have a 93 F150 5.8L 4x4 E4OD, i have a bent passenger side rear axle, my question is how often does something like this happen. I dont know how long I have been running it like this, I first saw it a couple of months back in the passenger mirror, so I jacked the truck up yesterday and swapped the wheels and the wobble stayed on the passenger side. The bearing doesnt seem to wobble, I tried lifting the tire up and down and left and right, no slack there, also it is not leaking any fluid around the seal so my bearing should be fine. Is this common, if it is what brand would you recommend?

 

I had a 72 Ford LTD that I drove in to a ditch to dodge a kid on a bike. Broke the axle right off at the flange when the back end kicked up and around and landed on the wheel, sideways. Put a used axle in and it was fine until the wheel bearing went bad. It was a fun project, figuring out the C clips and the pinion shaft bolt, all pre-internet. Pretty easy fix though. Sliding sideways in to a curb could easily bend or break an axle.

Were it mine, I'd just get a used Ford axle from a wrecking yard.

 

The photos & captions in this album explain how the axle works, and how to fix it:


(phone app link)

 

thanks, i mainly wanted to know how common it is for an axle to get bent without hitting anything in this generation of f150, because i am trying to decide between new and used as i have a donor vehicle for parts. thanks for the link but i fully understand how it all works and is put together, i have also converted my truck to rear disc brakes using explorer parts so this is going to be a breeze i am just trying to decide on new(expensive) or used(free).

 

It seems very very uncommon to bend any axle without hitting anything. You didn't mention the part about not hitting anything in your first post. Even severe overloading would probably not bend an axle like what you're seeing.

To be clear, you're basically saying that the wheel flange is not perpendicular to the axle shaft, if I read your description of wheel wobble right. Maybe it's cracked at the intersection with the shaft and about to fall off, not bent. That could be caused by metal fatigue. Seems more likely that somebody hit a curb though.

Edit - some wild *** guesses: maybe the wheel is not seated on the flange. A bent or defective lug stud. Or maybe the other end of the axle, at the diff is wobbling. A bad gear.

Good luck.

 

Thanks for the information, i am going to swap an axle from my parts truck and see if that fixes it. Ive owned this truck for 15 years and to the best of my knowledge I have never hit anything with it. We did however haul a 10,000 lb triple axle trailor(skid steer trailor) loaded with a 95 f150 ext cab long bed on it, maybe that done it but that has been a long time so I dont really know at this point. I already tried swapping the wheels around and the wobble stayed on the passenger side, Ive been in the rearend a couple of times in the last year or so between replaceing the vss(broke into pieces when I tried changing it and fell in) and swapping to disc brakes there was no obvious wear problems on the ring gear so I am going to see if its just the axle.