Rear Axle Replacement

Ok, this is to help people in the future if they need to remove one of the rear axles to replace a boot or just the axle. I pin holed a boot with the pressure washer and ordered one of those ezboot repair kits and another axle. Going to repair the boot and keep it as a spare.

1. Jack rear end up.

2. Remove tire.

3. Loosen the 32mm axle nut. It is staked so you'll need a good impact wrench. Even with my 500ft/lb impact it took some persuading. Left it on the axle but very loose close to the end of the threads.

4. Remove 2- 12mm nuts that hold brake caliper on.

5. Remove the 2 bolts that attach the upper and lower A-Arms closest to hub.

6. Bolt is a 17mm and nut is a 19mm.

7. Yank axle out with rear hub attached. Much easier than grabbing the axle by itself and pulling. The hub acts like a slide hammer weight.

8. The axle should still be attached to the hub. Mine was on there pretty good. I have a big 1 inch thick rubber mat that I was dropping the axle on nut side down to pull the hub away from the rotor. Holding the inside of the axle and letting the weight of the rotor pull itself off. After about 10 drops, it separated. There's a seal that holds the axle on the rotor and hub bearings that was really tight. Remove the axle nut one things are loose.

9. Cleaned and greased all the bushings, inside the hub seal, splines on new axle. Great time to grease everything. Those zerks are hard as heck to get grease in.

10. Put new axle on the rotor and hub assembly. Put the washer/axle nut on hand tight.

11. Put new axle into the rear diff. Now the hub acts like a slide hammer again and you can just push it a few good times and it'll snap right in.

12. Install the rear A-Arm bolts, brake caliper bolts.

13. Tighten up the axle nut and re-stake it. The staking should be in the same spot.

14. Put wheel on and go have some fun. Oh, one other thing, when I pulled the axle a good bit of diff gear oil came out. Make sure you have a pan under it. mine was full and clean Yay.