Bending a rear axle

You are welcome to your opinion but these things are not mistakes:

I noticed damaged splines which he cleared up. Sadly I had to spend another half hour on it so that it would actually slide into the differential.

He tried to press the old bearing off without removing the retainer clip.

He said that he put a socket over splines. There's also evidence of a hammer impact...

 

Highlighted in bold bud. I'm not saying what they did was right, but if it's a rookie shop of course there is going to be some "trial by the fire" sort of screw ups. Honestly, given the situation and the damages they have given the truck which is notable by the OP I would probably not be going back to them again for my own peace of mind.

 

Well, not rookie IAW the OP.

I still wouldn't classify these as mistakes. They should replace the axle and bearing at their own cost and refund his money.

If you want to beat on your own crap fine, but beating on something that you are getting paid to fix properly only makes you an incompetent hammer mechanic.

I have a low tolerance for incompetence or hammer mechanics. Like buttholes that don't install all the screws / bolts when they reinstall something. I see it daily.

 

I gotta agree with you there man. I can't stand seeing incompetence even at my own work. Sometimes I just gotta walk away because I can't believe some of the things I see. Gotta be thorough, gotta be clean, methodical and gotta be precise in what you do.

I missed some of what the previous conversation said and thats partially because I was reading the main post while I was at work. As a lot of my posts which are put up usually are. Lol. I have nothing more to add other than he screwed up and was pretty stupid for doing what he did. Carry on here.

BTW, sorry about your troubles @Larzzzz

 

It's all good.

 

feel you, bearings are expensive for spindles, and axles.

 

This and I've never pressed the old stuff off. Just took my little pneumatic 3" cutt-off grinder and cut the retainer and bearing off so much easier then it's easy peasy getting the new on.

 

So, I had the runout measured by a machinist. Gave him both the bent one and the leftover axle from the one I bought as a reference. The bent axle is .140" bent in the middle. The reference axle is .084"

The guy is denying doing any damage. So, as the saying goes: "every satisfied customer has two friends. Every dissatisfied customer has five."

I'm contemplating going back and having him install the axle with the conditions that if it goes together with no issues, I'll pay for his time. If it doesn't, he replaces the axle and bearing and doesn't charge me.

 

You don’t measure runout in the middle. The rough surface will never be perfectly tru. You put the axle in the lathe between centers and measure the runout at the seal surface. A bend in the middle will through off the seal surface. Mounting between centers is obviously not how the axle is mounted in the truck, but that’s how the axle was made and will give you an indication if it’s bent. As I mentioned, a little bit of runout is acceptable. Maybe .010”-015”. I wouldn’t want to see much more than that at the seal surface.

 

It was put on a lathe. Duhme for not having specified that measurement point to the guy who did the measuring.
Makes perfect sense though.

 

OP, hopefully you will get this sorted out soon.
After reading this account I can't honestly say I had warm and fuzzy feelings about
the condition of the wheel bearing(s).
The rear wheel bearing consist of dual side-by-side balls. I have done this job
a number of times using the specified Toyota adapter and can tell you that as
I recall things it would be possible to flat spot one or more of the balls going
gorilla as it might seem here.
If this were mine, I would probably replace the wheel bearing(s), just saying.