Failed axle = no boat for vacation

[you da man]

It's not a hard job at all but you'll definately want one other person to help. The tedious part was the brake lines. Bleeding the brake system was super easy. Two floor jacks helps lifting/lining up the axle easier.

[brain_rinse]

Jerry said the single to double conversion isn't cost effective. BOTH axles need to be replaced as they are different, all 4 side steps, fenders, even the brake actuator is different. Oh well, it was a good thought.

Now who wants to come help me install this thing?! I'll buy beer, you bring your jack stands.

[brain_rinse]

Just an update that my brother-in-law came to help me get the axle installed. I owe him big now...

The install was simple enough on paper but was actually fairly difficult. Just getting the boat high enough to yank the axle was a challenge since my auto jacks and jack stands aren't tall enough to reach the frame rails. And of course I didn't have big enough wrenches/sockets to pull off the trailing arms.

Pulling off and replacing the axle was the easiest part by far. We used a floor jack on each end to drop/raise the axles and that worked out great. But then the trailing arms did not want to fit on the new axle splines. Really had to open up the arms and even then it took a big sledge and a 4x4 to get the arms mounted to the axle.

Even setting the right arm angle was tough too since you can't dial the angle in precisely the way the instructions describe. We got within a couple degrees but you're limited by the splines. Move it one spline away and it's either way too high or too low, so you just pick the closest to 18 degrees.

Still have to bleed the brakes then I'm back in business. All things considered I am really happy with the support by Boatmate. They got me the axle in record time and were great with questions.

[you da man]

Just an update that my brother-in-law came to help me get the axle installed. I owe him big now...

The install was simple enough on paper but was actually fairly difficult. Just getting the boat high enough to yank the axle was a challenge since my auto jacks and jack stands aren't tall enough to reach the frame rails. And of course I didn't have big enough wrenches/sockets to pull off the trailing arms.

Pulling off and replacing the axle was the easiest part by far. We used a floor jack on each end to drop/raise the axles and that worked out great. But then the trailing arms did not want to fit on the new axle splines. Really had to open up the arms and even then it took a big sledge and a 4x4 to get the arms mounted to the axle.

Even setting the right arm angle was tough too since you can't dial the angle in precisely the way the instructions describe. We got within a couple degrees but you're limited by the splines. Move it one spline away and it's either way too high or too low, so you just pick the closest to 18 degrees.

Still have to bleed the brakes then I'm back in business. All things considered I am really happy with the support by Boatmate. They got me the axle in record time and were great with questions.

Before we took off the bad axle, my friend and I measured the distance from a fixed point on the good trailing arm to a fixed point about a foot above it. When we put on the new axle we followed the instructions and then double checked the distances we recorded earlier.