Axle shaft slop

[350dieselsmk]

Hey guys,
Just to make this week better I know noticed i have a whole lot up play in my passenger side axle shaft. about half an inch on each side. There is a metal ring coming out of the axle tube and i can also see alot of the play going into the hub assembly so somthing is obvuisly wrong in there aswell. ive tried researching and people say it could be the spindle bearings but this sure is alot of play. any ideas money is really tight right now and i need my truck for work which is killing me!
any ideas are greatly apreciated

[NoRalPh]

It's an amazing thing to see just how much play is actually OK to have there....

BRAND NEW there's tremendous amount of play. It's because there really no support at the end of the tube (pass side is the Long axle so it's always worse). Now I'm not saying yours is fine, just that movement there isn't really anything to get excited about.

Is it noisy? Any other reason to call it bad other than you tried to move it and saw how much play there was?

You could pull it apart and take a look at those needle brgs (spindle) 'cause they do fail a lot (usually with a roaring noise that's hard to miss) and, at that point, feel the Hub brgs for rough spots or binding (not play unless they're Really falling apart, but, again, you'd have some noise).

All-in-all, you might be getting excited about nothing though...... Slide under a few other trucks like yours and see how they ALL "wiggle around" like that

An honest One inch of play (1/2" each way) sounds like it's a problem, but maybe measure it to be sure that's what you really have...

[350dieselsmk]

thanks man. I am getting noise it is a constant clunking. It started only when I would hit a bump but has gradually started doing it all the time and varies with the speed of the truck. It's like a click

[melmount]

check ball joints, wheel bearings for play and sway bar links.

[350dieselsmk]

Everything is tight picked the front end up with the forklift at work the otherday. Did balljoints last march the earwig the shaft have minor scarring on them and I still get the clunking with the hubs locked

[350dieselsmk]

There is no grease either which makes me think it could be a whole hub assembly yet there is no play in the wheel itself. i pulled the out hub out a minute ago and was able to move the shaft up and down anything looked clean though. there is also a think curcular piece of wire that looks like a retaining clip coming out of the axle tube im going to try and get pictures maybe even a video in a few minutes

[NoRalPh]

What's supposed to be at the end of the tube is called a "dust" shield. It's not really doing much and most are like that (as you can imagine, with all the movement, none of them are necessary and are more for keeping pebbles out ). The real seal for the axle is inboard in the center section so, the tube is supposed to be dry...

[Young-SC-Owner]

The whole hub assembly is one whole unit, it has the needle bearings for supporting the axle shaft, and the main wheel bearing is also on the same unit. The clunk you heard is the axle shaft bouncing up and down, and the constant clicking you hear now is the front axle U joint hitting the top of the lower ball joint. I played that game. The hub is right at 300 dollars from Oriellys, and is butt simple to replace, just pull the locker off the front, take the guts out, and 4 nuts on the back side and it comes right off. reverse the order for reassembly

[maddogv21]

I just replaced my hubs, ball joints and axle u joints the other day. The old gear in there let that axle move all around in there. it had a considerable amount of play. Once i replaced everything, it stiffened up and the axle has next to no play now. I have noticed an incredible difference in the way my truck drives now. I had a bad clicking noise in the drivers side before I replaced everything, it was the axle u joint. I took out the old one and the rusted needle bears came out in pieces.....most were broke in half!! One thing I recommend is taking apart ALL of that stuff and PACK it full of grease. The way I look at it, there is no such thing as to much grease.....

[01Crewcab7.3]

Wow perfect just the thread I was about to start. I too just took my hub off to replace it and noticed that there was in my opinion a TON of play in the axle. Also to spin it by hand it feels as if it is seized. It will rotate a bit and then freeze up and if I back it up a bit and go back forward it will clear and then seize up again. Is this normal? I went to replace the hub because I was getting horrible fuel economy so I jacked the truck up to check the hub and the tire had lots of play so when I took it all apart this morning I found this. Any input would be great. Also I will measure the amount of play and report back. Thanks in advance for any input!