Ahh the cannon ball - or knuckle. Actually pretty good. Which is a surprise. They don't have to be like a billiard ball. The wiper seals don't fully keep everything out hence the importance of having grease in there.
I agree with Andy on refreshing the grease for the swivels but don't expect that grease to migrate into the CVs because it simply won't.
Nice job chris.Sorry Ben, which housing. Do you mean the actual axle casing? That's not bad. And about 3000% better than the rear one. If you mean the swivel housing, well here's a before ..
View attachment 136872
And an after .....
View attachment 136873
Magically, I seem to transferred all the filth to my garage floor, walls and windows.
But good progress today, although I didn't quite get the diff out. Light stopped play.
However, the cleaning paid off.
View attachment 136874
Next couple of days should go easy enough for the rebuild. Lots of new parts. All new bearings, CVs, backing plates seals, nuts and so on.
View attachment 136875
Only snapped on wiper seal bolt. But that was easily remedied.
View attachment 136876
I think that's an old crack and has been capillaried with water. Steel goes black like that.
Why the drive shafts might I ask? Rare you'd need to replace those and they are hugely expensive. What's wrong with them? We can tell you the part numbers if you let us know exactly which 80 you have. It's only the CVs really that are different and in any case you can fit the longer ones to an early 80 with the uprated drive flanges.
Roughtrax do a very good series of rebuild kits. Just pick your problem and buy the right kit. I used several this week and was impressed. A rebuild is easy IF everything goes really well. But as you can see from this thread alone, it doesn't always. Snap a stud or something and unless you've got the kit and the knowledge, you're stuffed.
If you fit a used stub axle, I'd be be careful to inspect the bushing in side for ovality.
You have to make sure you keep them greased though which was never really a problem with the old bushings ... I never had a spindle bush 'failure' on an 80 but I've had spindle bearing failures on the 100 and that caused binding and shaft damage. Not disagreeing just noting the maintenance issue.Personally I would upgrade any 80 series stub axle to the 105 series needle roller set up , it just seems to be smoother and a better engineering solution .