440 IC Axle Shaft Spline Wear

[hunter41mag]

Hi Lavoy,

The new web site is looking good, I try to log on once a week to read the post's and other info.

My 440 IC would not turn left anymore so I had to remove the final drives for repair. In doing so I found alot of missing bolts (must have been apart before) and the bull gears were loose on the axle shafts because the clamp plate bolts had loosend up. This caused wear to the sides of the axle splines and some slight wear on the bull gear splines. Have you had any luck with cleaning up the burred edges and re-using these parts when they had this type of wear? After I have everything cleaned up I will be contacting you for various parts.

Don
Eastern Pennsylvania

[Lavoy]

The problem is so prevalent, that on all of the final drives I put together now, I Loctite the axle and hub. It might be overkill, but it helps to insure that they don't loosen up.
On ones with worn splines, I clean them up, and when I reassemble them, I use JB Weld. I put it against the sides of the splines, that is where most of the wear is. Assemble the final, torque everything, shim the bearings, and leave it alone for 24 hours. The following day I add the gear lube and install the final.
Only other option is to replace axle and gears. New gears are availabe, but not axles, so finding a good used axle with tight splines can be a problem.
Lavoy