Direct New Replacement

"Seat Safety Switch" (seat-safety-switch)
12/09/2015 at 11:37 • Filed to: dodge shadow, pocket tazer to my genitals, install error

It was true what they said. When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back into you. Sometimes the abyss is an aftermarket axle manufacturer. My ears rung and my vision swam as I lifted myself out of my six point restraints. I probably had a concussion, but you should have seen the other guy.

A couple weeks ago, I ordered replacement half shafts. I was so excited; at last I would have a functional car that could put power to the ground instead of endlessly and futilely spinning a shattered tulip joint inside a parched vulcanized boot. The install went great, with only a moderate amount of swearing. I was getting good at this, I thought.

Fast forward to yesterday. Merging onto the Trans-Canada, I heard a wet squelch and smelled the fetid aroma of fresh moly grease on a header. Siri woke up, having recognized at least part of my swearing as a distinct order, and began plotting a course for the axle manufacturer’s factory. I swear that’s how it happened, officer.

I emerged from the Shadow, its front end smashed beyond repair. A worthy sacrifice. Before me was the lead QA technician, crawling backwards on his ass, weeping openly out of fear of the avatar of revenge that had appeared so suddenly in his life.

“I want you to look,” I growled, grabbing his head and forcing his sight towards the demolished corner of my Plymouth once-economy car, the axle obliterated by the impact into a haze of moly grease and shattered high tensile steel.

“Looks like install error to me,” said a voice from the bank of elevators. The hair rose on the back of my neck. This was a trap. They knew what they were doing. I played right into their hands. Everyone was in on it. Et tu , Siri?

“I’ve been waiting a long time to get you in for an interview,” said the man, clad in a thick grease-proof coverall, his face covered by a 3M Tekk mask. “Congratulations, you just got the job of lead stress tester.”

I would have been more enthusiastic, were it not for the QA tech applying his pocket tazer to my genitals while I was distracted.

DISCUSSION (94)

DrJohannVegas > Seat Safety Switch
12/09/2015 at 11:52

Short, but effective.

wink

CB > Seat Safety Switch
12/11/2015 at 10:56

Brilliant work as always.

Hollywood Speed: I don't know what I'm doing > Seat Safety Switch
12/11/2015 at 10:57

At least you got a free taser to the nuts. Most people would’ve just shook your hand.

Gary Yogurt > Seat Safety Switch
12/11/2015 at 11:01

I’m glad you’re alive. Yikes.

Several years ago I had bought two replacement half-shafts for my ‘89 Civic, although not Honda-made, I ordered the correct parts with the correct splines. Or so I thought. After a nearly painless install, the car was back on the road. A week later, I was teaching my wife how to drive a manual. Driving around our city neighborhood, she dumped the clutch and the car refused to move. I thought she had somehow ruined a nearly new clutch. Not the case. The axles I bought were somehow one spline fewer from the originals, the minimal difference in diameter gave way to the force of a dumped clutch and left the axle just spinning inside the hub. So happy it didn’t happen on the highway.

matt1994xj > Seat Safety Switch
12/11/2015 at 11:01

I think you need to check out raxles.com

Wagons-Midwest > Seat Safety Switch
12/11/2015 at 11:01

Replacing the boot is more satisfying, though much longer and messier. Sounds like your old ones were totally busted, though.

Seat Safety Switch > Wagons-Midwest
12/11/2015 at 11:03

Usually if you buy a factory-new axle you expect the boots to be crimped.

Maybe I’m biased.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Seat Safety Switch
12/11/2015 at 11:04

Congrats again on the front page. Pay this man, Mr. George!

JawzX2, Boost Addict. 1.6t, 2.7tt, 4.2t > Seat Safety Switch
12/11/2015 at 11:12

Please, PLEASE remember to read Seat Safety Switch’s other short fiction. It’s AMAZING.

special_k_side > Seat Safety Switch
12/11/2015 at 11:18

Let me guess, UAP-NAPA remans?

Seat Safety Switch > special_k_side
12/11/2015 at 11:19

Cardone brand new. Two in a row.

Warlord of Crud > Seat Safety Switch
12/11/2015 at 11:20

In 2003, I had Humpty Dumpty’s incompetent mechanics install a set of differential gears in my GMC pick-up. Less than 500 miles later, the differential broke again. The gear company called the mechanics and discovered they had done exactly 0 break in procedures. The mechanics of course refused to take responsibility, and that is the story of how I was ripped off by a bunch of dumbass mechanics in Virginia.

Derel1cte > JawzX2, Boost Addict. 1.6t, 2.7tt, 4.2t
12/11/2015 at 11:21

More like unreadable.

Party-vi > Derel1cte
12/11/2015 at 11:26

Why don’t you Derel1cte my balls?

vondon302 > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
12/11/2015 at 11:26

Same here! I aways want more when i finish one of his stories.

LemonsEngineer > Seat Safety Switch
12/11/2015 at 11:28

I’m not 100% sure what I just read, but i’m familiar with crappy axles for Chrysler products. I put 3 new driver side axles in my daytona inside a year and half. Granted we were racing on them, but still. None of the reman axles lasted more than 2 races. On one we obliterated the spring inside the transmission side CV, which meant it refused to stay in the transmission anymore. One started leaking grease after a single race. I got really good at replacing those.

ArtemisGoldfish, Unashamed PT Cruiser Owner > Gary Yogurt
12/11/2015 at 11:30

So what you’re saying is that we should invest in a good set of calipers?

sdaniels8 > Seat Safety Switch
12/11/2015 at 11:36

I wanted to replace the halfshafts on my wifes Sentra. I called Nissan and asked him for a price. The guy literally laughed at me on the phone. He said they don’t use them at the dealership. They use “insert trash rebuild company here”. I told him I didn’t want a used halfshaft with new boots and smurf goo. He then informed me they come with a warranty. Yes, I fell for this trap twice before. Sure they give you new used halfshafts. They don’t help remove them after 10 days, reinstall them or pay for the front end alignment. The original halfshafts in a car last a long time. The replacements always fail at an almost yearly rate. Anyone seeing a trend here?

Seat Safety Switch > LemonsEngineer
12/11/2015 at 11:36

When I was last in the junkyard, I saw a Caravan with a semi-dismantled carrier bearing for the (I guess it would be passenger-side?) axle with three quarters of a blued axle shaft and exploded bearings and tulip sticking out of it.

Gary Yogurt > ArtemisGoldfish, Unashamed PT Cruiser Owner
12/11/2015 at 11:37

I’m just going to weld everything together in the future.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > vondon302
12/11/2015 at 11:37

Have you read them all? Once he got started, he’s been pretty prolific...

Seat Safety Switch > sdaniels8
12/11/2015 at 11:38

The inspiration for this entry came from the last two Cardone new replacement axles I’d put in my Subaru. Loose crimps on the boots leading to a moly grease stew on my underbody.

I’ve bought exclusively from them for the last few years, but now I’m thinking about looking around.

RockAuto warranty service is excellent, but it’s not like the shipping is free. Nor is the afternoon I burn under my car every time.

Wagons-Midwest > Seat Safety Switch
12/11/2015 at 11:39

So you have to pay for the weird-ass crimping tool, too? Sneaky.

Seat Safety Switch > Wagons-Midwest
12/11/2015 at 11:44

“Weird-ass crimping tool” is a very long way to say “zipties.”

vondon302 > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
12/11/2015 at 11:47

Yup read em all. I’d like to see a weekly serial story but I’ll take what I can get. Glad he made frontpage again. He deserves it.

Eisberg4k1 > Seat Safety Switch
12/11/2015 at 11:53

After a few horrible experiences with aftermarket CV axles(ie Autozone and Napa brand products) I will never purchase non-OE CVs again! Immediately upon installation they made horrible noises and vibrations and were immediately removed and returned. A quick and good bit more expensive stop by the dealer for an OE axle and problem solved.

FBMWhite > Seat Safety Switch
12/11/2015 at 11:54

I dig it.

CalzoneGolem > Party-vi
12/11/2015 at 12:02

... on fire?

Quade > Seat Safety Switch
12/11/2015 at 12:10

Aftermarket axles are shit. I won’t use them. I’ll buy a new one or a good used OEM one before I’ll put that crap on my car. Reman parts in general are crap. I’ll either buy new, buy used OEM or rebuild it myself. One time I was chatting with a friend not long after he’d installed a set of reman axles. He mentioned the left wheel was acting funny. I looked at it and it seemed strange. Took a second to recognize what I was seeing. The whole end of the axle had sheered off along with the bolt that held the hub on. The only thing keeping his wheel attached was the brake caliper and caliper bracket.

The process of “Reman” is basically a cleanup job. They clean the parts, replace whatever one part has failed, then re-assemble and re-sell. So, you’re getting back a 150K mile alternator with a new voltage regulator or new diodes and old everything else.

Wolc *grammar nazis go f*** yourselves* > Seat Safety Switch
12/11/2015 at 12:16

Apparently you have found Torches writing stash. Please tell us, what is he using.

Seat Safety Switch > Quade
12/11/2015 at 12:17

I have been doing really well with Cardones, because they’re new and not reman, but I’ve had two failures in one year which is sort of putting me off their QC now.

Dr. Strangegun > LemonsEngineer
12/11/2015 at 12:18

Did you adjust/verify the engine position?

Some of the K/L derivatives have enough adjustment available in the engine mounts that you can have it far enough out to actually disengage an axle under jounce/rebound. The other side may bottom out and shatter.

Others.... well, if you aren’t watching you can install the passenger side mount inverted, and that’s not good for axles either.

Seat Safety Switch > Wolc *grammar nazis go f*** yourselves*
12/11/2015 at 12:21

Who cares about his writing stash? I want his video stash.

I need to figure out a reason to visit the Lane motor museum because it seems like I would end up working there.

Mopar4life > Seat Safety Switch
12/11/2015 at 12:26

I will never buy “new” axles for a Mopar product again. I twisted off a half-dozen of them before getting a reman one (warranties are a great thing). Still has the reman axles today, some 50k later.

The new axles for Mopar run smaller shafts, making them prone to breaking. The remans are factory shafts, so they’re much stronger.

Seat Safety Switch > Mopar4life
12/11/2015 at 12:28

This doesn’t seem to be the case with the Subaru Cardones, but admittedly I haven’t calipered them out.

My problem is usually exploding the tulips, and there aren’t really replacement joints available for the Subaru tulips (because Subaru are freaks, see also the driveshaft u-joints).

Mopar4life > Seat Safety Switch
12/11/2015 at 12:30

It is the case with “new” axles for Mopars. Mine were brand new Cardone’s, all 6 I replaced were twisted off. Granted my car was cranking far more power than stock, but the stock 180k mile axles never failed with the extra power, the joints just wore out from age/miles.

Prismatist > DrJohannVegas
12/11/2015 at 12:31

I hear that a lot.

Seat Safety Switch > Mopar4life
12/11/2015 at 12:33

Yeah. Historically with the Subarus, I buy low-powered shitboxes from little old ladies and then immediately take them to redline and try to see how many Gs I can pop.

So power isn’t my problem, violently unloading vintage OE axles under full throttle on a cloverleaf pothole usually is.

My ‘97 (pictured in avatar) was putatively RWD by the time I finally plunked some replacement front axles into it. They had over an inch of play at the inner shaft by hand.

monkeyracing > Seat Safety Switch
12/11/2015 at 12:34

About 6 years ago, i was in hospital, suffering from severe delirium caused by trauma. (The mind does weird things to cope with the body being messed up) This story reminds me of that - disjointed, jumpy, weird.

It's more art pice/poetry than it is narrative.

Wolc *grammar nazis go f*** yourselves* > Seat Safety Switch
12/11/2015 at 12:38

Think it’s the same thing. Different dosage thought.

Seat Safety Switch > monkeyracing
12/11/2015 at 12:39

I think that’s probably the nicest thing anyone’s ever said about my writing.

In my formative years, I spent a lot of time around “art kids” and more accurately, bipolar sufferers. It has always worried me how tenuous the coupling between our human bodies, objective reality and the narratives we tell ourselves are.

Walt-G > Seat Safety Switch
12/11/2015 at 12:40

A Plymouth Shadow? Where’s Dodge when you need him?

atomicalex > Seat Safety Switch
12/11/2015 at 12:42

At least the part fit. I eventually figured out that my halfshafts don’t exist. Yes, they do not exist. I get to have them made specially for my beautiful snowflake of a car.

Mopar4life > Seat Safety Switch
12/11/2015 at 12:44

My Spirit was making almost double factory power numbers from the 3.0 V6.

Quade > Seat Safety Switch
12/11/2015 at 12:45

I have been doing really well with Cardones, because they’re new and not reman, but I’ve had two failures in one year which is sort of putting me off their QC now.

The more I think about it, the more I realize I’ve only really been satisfied with OEM parts. Tie rods and ball joints for instance. The best aftermarket parts still aren’t as good was what I get from the manufacturer.

Seat Safety Switch > Mopar4life
12/11/2015 at 12:51

I hear the Mitsu 3.0s love boost. I’ve always wanted to put together a Turbo Dodge myself, as they were really popular in high school, but it seems they’ve all disappeared in the intervening decades.

Seat Safety Switch > atomicalex
12/11/2015 at 12:51

If I ever win the lottery, I’m going to start a rare-parts manufacturer.

stevomr5 > Seat Safety Switch
12/11/2015 at 12:53

Imagine what it is like when it is your Can-Am car and they "forgot" to heat treat and harden the steel. Luckily happened to our driver in a slow corner

Manwich - now Keto-Friendly > Seat Safety Switch
12/11/2015 at 12:55

This makes me think of my Ford Focus... and Ford’s inability to install tie rods that are robust into the Focus/Escort.

When I had Ford Escorts, I replaced tie rods. When my mother had a Ford Escort, she replaced tie rods. When my brother had an Escort, he replaced tie rods. When my sister had a Focus, she replaced tie rods. Now that I have a Focus, the dealer I bought it from had to replace a tie rod to get it to pass the safety... and now I need to replace a tie rod.

Half of the issue is the OEM tie rods are shit. The other half of the issue is when you take the car to a mechanic, they replace the old stuff with new stuff that is also cheap OEM shit that lasts a few years before having issues again. And of course every time you replace a tie rod, you should also get an alignment redone... which typically costs $100 each time.

And the cost difference between the cheap shit and the better parts isn’t that much. The cost of labour and the cost of having to get alignments redone is a bigger factor.

So when I was recently told that my driver side inner tie rod has ‘play’ and should be replaced soon, I went onto Rockauto.com, ordered 4 Moog brand “problem solver” tie rods (2 inner, 2 outer... gonna do them all in one shot that come with greasable fittings... total cost including shipping, tax and customs was only $130.

I figure that by replacing all tie rods with a known-to-be-good brand, it will be cheaper in the long run and I’ll have fewer issues... especially if I stay on top of keeping those tie rods properly greased.

Seat Safety Switch > Manwich - now Keto-Friendly
12/11/2015 at 12:56

I have almost always had success with Moog K-series parts, and speaking to jobber mechanics that I have known over the years, they agree with my findings.

It will be an extremely sad day when Moog goes downhill in pursuit of shareholder value.

Seat Safety Switch > stevomr5
12/11/2015 at 12:57

Can-Am cars are terrifying enough when all the parts are functional.

LemonsEngineer > Dr. Strangegun
12/11/2015 at 12:59

Yea, we verified the engine placement. Our car had uneven length axles with no center support for the passenger side. Axles for that car were like $45, so I wasn’t expecting quality.

Manwich - now Keto-Friendly > Seat Safety Switch
12/11/2015 at 13:01

Hopefully that day will never arrive.

Mopar4life > Seat Safety Switch
12/11/2015 at 13:06

They’re all over yet, just gotta be looking. I had mine high comp built, never got around to boost, it’s too much fun as it sits.

Do have a supercharged 3.3L Voyager Sport though, that’s a riot too.

Dr. Strangegun > LemonsEngineer
12/11/2015 at 13:06

Racing that setup was an invitation for problems, even with good axles... Chrysler went through the hassle of developing the equal-length getup (with the hanger and the intermediate bearing) and those rear torque struts for good reasons.

I never broke one, but the unequal-length was what I was running when I rallycrossed a ‘91 shadow and if I had more than the 100 horse I was pushing, I probably would have upgraded to a solid torque strut and poly mounts just to keep from twisting the engine up enough to exceed any driveline angles.

Ogre8 > Dr. Strangegun
12/11/2015 at 13:16

This. Seen it many times.

ED9man2 > Seat Safety Switch
12/11/2015 at 13:17

Nearly all aftermarket axles are worthless garbage. Many manufacturers offer OEM remanufactured axles available at a pretty reasonable cost from the dealer. As an alternative I’ve had good experiences with The Driveshaft Shop, and I’ve heard good things about Raxles if you have the factory ones to exchange. Rule of thumb is if it has a lifetime warranty steer clear.

Gnarkill > Seat Safety Switch
12/11/2015 at 13:21

Used some napa CV shafts on my 3’’ lifted o2 tacoma ,it had some quality coilovers and uniball upper a arms great little offroad rally truck. anyways run at those angles under those conditions napa cv shafts have about 1/100th of the duty-cycle of toyota axleshafts. they grenaded pretty quickly and i went with only toyota parts after that.

ateamfan42 > Gary Yogurt
12/11/2015 at 13:28

That is amazing they could even install. wow!

PNW20v > matt1994xj
12/11/2015 at 13:31

That used to be the ONLY place to get legitimate “P80” Gen Volvos from the 90’s, last time I checked they dont offer them anymore :(

PNW20v > Seat Safety Switch
12/11/2015 at 13:33

Axles are scary stuff, especially in a tuned car. It sucks in Volvo world where the only good place to get replacements was from Raxles, but since they dont offer them anymore it is an eternal Hell of endless axle swaps, using cheap NAPA cv axles till they implode...

Seat Safety Switch > PNW20v
12/11/2015 at 13:36

Plus on the later model V and XC cars, I’ve heard the rear wheel bearings are also vulnerable to seizing to the axle. Unpleasant beyond imagining.

LemonsEngineer > Dr. Strangegun
12/11/2015 at 13:45

Touching a turbo dodge is an invitation for problems. Passenger side axle held up fine. driver side we had issues with. Our car had a rear anti-bobble with poly bushing. we stiffened up all the mounts, and when bolted in the engine would barely move.

Just about 5k race miles on that car before I retired it due to rusting out frame and chassis.

PNO TECH > Gary Yogurt
12/11/2015 at 14:05

YES! Always count splines at both ends! I bought lifetime warranty axles for my Subarus and used to swap one out every 6 months cause I beat on them mercilessly and they only lasted maybe a year. Once I got an axle with 27 splines at inner end rather than 29. Went in alright(hey: EVRYTHING was kinda loose by this time!), but when I floored it & shifted to 2nd, it spun on the splines instead of chirping the tire. Ugly.

Advance makes the claims proccess so arduous that after a week I just spent an hour or so with a piece of hacksaw bade and several triangular files to get proper one to work again. I now >>always<< compare new & old very carefully.

Btw, this was a mistake at rebuild factory: correct shaft & outer end, but inner end from an automatic

PNW20v > Seat Safety Switch
12/11/2015 at 14:07

UGh that sounds like NO fun at all, but I can totally understand it! I’ve messed with the rear brakes on mine and I can very much understand how those could get stuck; I live in WA state and even then the corrosion around that area is impressive lol.

tomgabriele > Seat Safety Switch
12/11/2015 at 15:00

parched vulcanized

i.e. rubber with dry rot? I like your way better though.

Dr. Strangegun > LemonsEngineer
12/11/2015 at 15:35

Wow. What year was it? Or, I guess the better question is, did it have the early stamped arms or the late cast aluminum ones? Or maybe you really were just getting crap axles :)

Unfortunately up until lately you really couldn’t go by cost on whether or not the axle was junk or not because they were all, compared with other vehicles, dirt cheap...

Memory is extremely fuzzy on this, but I’m recalling someone having issues keeping axles alive, and it turned out that part of the axle splines in the transmission had worn and was letting the joint rotate at an angle. REAL fuzzy, as I can’t remember the actual failure mode now... that wouldn’t be enough to hit the limits or bind, but it might eventually deprive the joint of grease.

BrianMadigan > Seat Safety Switch
12/11/2015 at 15:42

Who was the manufacturer, and where did they fail? Splined shafts are pretty important to get right. Of course, the transaxles output splines might have been ruined by the play in the old joints. You can check spline engagement with Dykem or Sharpie ink on the CV shaft. The engagement should be a slip fit with no play.

MuricaRules > Seat Safety Switch
12/11/2015 at 15:59

TLDR.

Tohru > Wolc *grammar nazis go f*** yourselves*
12/11/2015 at 16:59

Also different orifice.

Tohru > Seat Safety Switch
12/11/2015 at 17:02

The farm kid I traded my Ram 50 to told me he was going to pull out the G63B and swap in a turbo 6G72 out of a Stealth.

I wonder if he ever did it.

Tohru > Manwich - now Keto-Friendly
12/11/2015 at 17:04

When I had my Escorts I think I only replaced 1 tie rod end.

The problem with mine was the 3 engines, 2 cylinder heads, and 2 transmissions they went through.

Gary Yogurt > PNO TECH
12/11/2015 at 17:05

Oh man, that sucks. Kind of nice to share the pain though.

Tohru > Hollywood Speed: I don't know what I'm doing
12/11/2015 at 17:06

In Vegas you have to pay extra for the taser.

Tohru > Seat Safety Switch
12/11/2015 at 17:08

The only vehicle I’ve ever destroyed an axle shaft on was the Plymouth Voyager delivery van for the auto parts store I worked at. I was trying to time a gap in traffic and WOT from a dead stop was too much for it.

Manwich - now Keto-Friendly > Tohru
12/11/2015 at 17:25

My mom’s Escort dropped a valve which cost $800 to fix. But between the two Escorts I had, the engine and transmission was never an issue.

Rust is what typically did in the Escorts we had.

One of the Escorts I had was owned by my brother first. So it was in the family for a good 10 years and almost 300,000km put on it. And in that time, there were 5-6 tie rod replacements. But that was before knowing what I know now... and long before web sites like rockauto existed (or at least before they shipped to Canada).

And based on what I see with older Focii, I predict that rust is what will do in my current Focus as well in a few years.

Tohru > Manwich - now Keto-Friendly
12/11/2015 at 17:37

Let’s see...

The Tracer wagon grenaded the automatic, but I sold it to my neighbor for exactly what I bought it for 18 months prior.

The red Escort blew out the slusher’s 3-4 gear clutch on the Interstate ($250 for used trans), then popped the motor (overheat, bad temp sensors; $350 for motor), then blew the diff spider gears out the side of the case. It got scrapped then - the rust was too bad.

Kinja'd!!!

The purple Escort was bought with a junk motor (valve seat, swapped in the motor from the red Escort). 10k miles later, that motor dropped a valve seat ($400 for used motor). 40k miles later, that motor started acting weird. Pulled the head to find out the valve seat was loose ($200 for a rebuilt cylinder head). Then the rebuilt head had to get replaced under warranty because it had pinholes in cylinder 3 causing it to whiz coolant into the cylinder. I also ended up patching the rusty rocker panels.

Then I sold the fucker.

Kinja'd!!!

Manwich - now Keto-Friendly > Tohru
12/11/2015 at 17:44

On one of the Escorts I had (a 1995 Wagon), I wanted to rotate the tires.

So I got out the jack, started to jack it up.

It started to lift and then went back down as the jack went through the rust and paint.

I got rid of it not long after.

GLHNSLHT2 > Seat Safety Switch
12/11/2015 at 18:49

If feel your pain. My Daytona ShelbyZ fractured the end of the axle shaft off inside the outboard joint doing a burnout. I used to have a guy that could rebuild factory axles that was top notch. But he’s since retired. Now I’m wondering what I’m going to do for axles for my 500hp (minimum) 2.5 16v engine I’m building for it. :(

I do have a question though as your article is somewhat vague. How do you crash into something when the axle lets go???

monkeyracing > Seat Safety Switch
12/11/2015 at 18:58

You're quite welcome.

Du09 > Seat Safety Switch
12/11/2015 at 19:43

RomRoberts, is that you?

Seat Safety Switch > GLHNSLHT2
12/11/2015 at 19:44

I deliberately rammed the lobby of the aftermarket axle manufacturer in an attempt to get a warranty return without paying shipping.

With all the comments on this thread from Turbo Dodge owners I’m sort of wondering if there’s an untapped niche to scoop up.

kis_ev > Seat Safety Switch
12/11/2015 at 20:58

I cringe at the thought of needing new axles. If it’s not the dependability of reman/aftermarket axles, it’s the CV boots. I’ve got a MK4 VW and have seen a lot of aftermarket CV boots slide right off their flanges shortly after install. I don’t know how companies are allowed to sell crap with high failure frequency. I’ve got 300K miles on my originals and I know I’ll probably need to replace some drivetrain components in the next couple of years.

The Hotness > Seat Safety Switch
12/11/2015 at 23:26

Errr... what?

RWDPLZ > Seat Safety Switch
12/12/2015 at 00:25

Built to blast, Duralast!

LemonsEngineer > Dr. Strangegun
12/14/2015 at 08:43

‘89 Daytona Shelby. Had stamped arms. No idea if that was original, the previous owner did some stupid things, like huge ebay turbo and no other supporting mods. I think I just got crap axles. The ones in the car when I got it appeared to be original. Finally a boot ripped and I had to replace it. That one lasted a couple races. Replacement finally shattered the inner CV spring. That replacement leaked grease almost immediately. Never got to test that 3rd axle since we wrecked a motor 26 laps into the car’s last race.

WHISKEY > Seat Safety Switch
12/14/2015 at 13:16

I think, i think i’m in love.

TheJMan92 > Seat Safety Switch
12/15/2015 at 18:23

I’ve had the distinct displeasure of having the half shaft lock bolt back out twice on the driver side of my Mazda 3. Both were during low speed turns, one only a few miles from my home, and then again yesterday about an hour from home in a parking lot. Either could have happened at a much worse time, but yesterdays took out my new snow tire as well so I’m a bit sore about that.

By the by, anyone know what the driver side axle lock bolt on a 2004 Mazda 3s auto is supposed to be torqued to? Because apparently I don’t.

Seat Safety Switch > TheJMan92
12/15/2015 at 18:46

If it’s anything like a Subaru, the axle nut is supposed to be torqued to a jillion ft-lb and then staked to hold it in place.

TheJMan92 > Seat Safety Switch
12/16/2015 at 13:11

Oddly these appear to take 25-30 ft-lb and then a quarter turn after that. Doesn’t seem enough to me but I’m going to do some science tonight and figure out what they break at.

I’ve got two that were removed previously so I can torque them until they give and see what I come up with. They are torque to yield also, so that may throw results off.

Seat Safety Switch > TheJMan92
12/16/2015 at 13:14

If it’s a bolt in the end of a threaded hole in the axle shaft it probably doesn’t take much. Can’t say I’ve seen many of those though.

The Subaru ones have threaded axle shafts and you drop a nut on top of them and crank it the fuck down (see picture).

TheJMan92 > Seat Safety Switch
12/16/2015 at 13:21

Yea these are a bolt in the end of a threaded hole, I wish this was a threaded shaft & nut setup.

They also have the threaded hole run straight into the boot of the half shaft, it prevents me from just throwing some loctite on and forgetting it. They must have used the hole as an easier way to fill the axle with grease, annoying for me though.

I might try to clean that out as best I can and hope the loctite takes anyway. At this point (the fourth one I’ve replaced) I’ll take any measure of securing the damn thing in place.

Shifty McShifterson > Seat Safety Switch
12/17/2015 at 15:15

I hope I get as lucky with the axles in my Fusion as with the ones in my Grand Prix. Never had to change the right one, with 309,000 miles. Still had good boots, and didn’t make a sound. (Hit a curb hard with the left front wheel, so that axle was replaced.)

Tohru > TheJMan92
11/08/2020 at 12:28

can’t come loose if it’s welded