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Hey - did you know if you click on the title of a thread it will take you to the first unread post since you last visited that thread?
but were afraid to ask: 
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Pretty Please - add it to our Events forum(s) and add to the calendar! >> 
YakkoWarner
Jedi Warrior
Offline
What I don't understand about rear axles can fill vast volumes if not entire libraries. I have a basic undersanding of gears, but how one side turns and the other doesn't is a mystery to me. What is also a mystery to me (and more to the point of this question) is how tight or loose the input flange (where the driveshaft attaches) should be?
While under the car last weekend trying to fabricate some sort of battery hold-down, it occured to me to grab the input flange of the rear axle and see if it felt loose (the driveshaft is out and sitting on a shelf for now). It both does and doesn't....I can turn it about 5-10 degrees in either direction, but the part I don't understand is that the large nut that holds the flange on only moves a couple of degrees - it almost seems like the flange is loose on the input shaft? I don't feel any looseness either side to side, up and down or in and out. The obvious answer is to tighten the nut - except that being a rear axle tightening that nut may well destroy the whole thing or bring an end to life as we know it in the universe.
I have no idea what I'm up against here - it doesn't seem normal but in this context normal may be a fairly fluid concept. I feel like the nut and flange should move as as a single unit, does this thing have splines and are they worn/damaged? I assume if so the whole thing has to be ripped apart?
While under the car last weekend trying to fabricate some sort of battery hold-down, it occured to me to grab the input flange of the rear axle and see if it felt loose (the driveshaft is out and sitting on a shelf for now). It both does and doesn't....I can turn it about 5-10 degrees in either direction, but the part I don't understand is that the large nut that holds the flange on only moves a couple of degrees - it almost seems like the flange is loose on the input shaft? I don't feel any looseness either side to side, up and down or in and out. The obvious answer is to tighten the nut - except that being a rear axle tightening that nut may well destroy the whole thing or bring an end to life as we know it in the universe.
I have no idea what I'm up against here - it doesn't seem normal but in this context normal may be a fairly fluid concept. I feel like the nut and flange should move as as a single unit, does this thing have splines and are they worn/damaged? I assume if so the whole thing has to be ripped apart?