giosoccer20

Just had my diff replaced with an auburn diff on my '00 z28. My mechanic said that both of my axle shafts had wear/damage on them, and therefore would need that addressed relatively soon (f*** me, right? I'm a student with very little money). he said I'll need new axle shafts, bearings, and seals. My question is, can I get used axle shafts, if there is no damage on them? My mechanic said I HAVE to get new ones...but idk. Also, I do know about those axle repair bearings, and that they actually work, even though they are tricky to install. Should I do that, since my budget is very limited?

giosoccer20

and considering the fact it's also pretty stupid to be rebuilding a 10 bolt, should I just opt for the axle repair bearings? I have never taken this car to the drag strip, nor do I plan to. It's my fun daily driver, and I drive it pretty lightly in hopes of maintaining it well, with occasional pulls and slides and stuff, but rarely do I launch it hard.

SparkyJJO

iTrader: (11)

Getting used axle shafts is just fine as long as the bearing surface is in good shape. That's what I did on my old car that had a chewed up bearing surface. Never had a problem with it.

Those "axle repair" bearings are crap. Highly likely to leak since the seal is thinner to relocate the bearing, and then I've seen a lot of reports that you cannot get the C clip out with those repair bearings as they don't allow enough inboard movement to release it.

giosoccer20

Damn, that's not what I wanted to hear in regards to the axle repair bearings. I asked my mechanic how bad the damage was on my axles. He said there is wear, but not crazy bad. I wonder how much longer I can keep driving it so I can have some time to save up money? There has been a sound since day one (I bought it a month ago), which I now realize has probs been the axle shafts, but it hasn't changed at all, and I've driven it almoat 1000 miles, including 150 mile trips to the beach.

I think I can drive it, but the second I hear a change in the sound, I'll be taking it to my shop. Yes, no?

SparkyJJO

iTrader: (11)

You could stick new bearings in and put the current axles in there, but no saying how long that would last. Sometimes they'll tear up the near bearings really quickly, other times they'll be OK. All depends on how bad and what kind of wear the shafts have. Have you seen them? They pitted/grooved or just discolored but still smooth?

giosoccer20

He showed me an example of what mine looked like via a few axle shafts he had laying around. It looked to be discolored but smooth. This is definitely something I don't want to have to risk doing again, at least for another 20-30k miles, so I guess I'm going to start saving up some money for axle shafts

murphinator

iTrader: (2)

Plenty of good used rear ends for $200-300 just punch your zip code in the parts locator on www.car-part.com. Don't leave out the dash that's a different site...

Then you can sell off or part out your current rear , someone may want the housing , people use the tubes to weld on a 8.8 or similar swap , maybe keep your auburn for a spare since you know it's recent or sell it to help fund the new used rear.

The way your mechanic has you heading parts and labor will be double the cost of a junkyard rear.

giosoccer20

You make a good point. It's pretty stupid how he assembled the car back together and THEN proceeded to tell me my axle shafts were bad... I'll definitely be having a word with him regarding that. As far as those junkyard rear ends, I WAS going to do that, but in all honesty, you never know what you're going to get with those. They could be in functional condition at that moment, but may be only 5k miles away from failure.