Need suggestions for rusted axle threads

I need to do a rear hub/bearing swap on my 03 explorer. But the truck has northern exposure, and the rear axle shaft threads were really rusty. So I wire wheeled the axle shaft threads (the portion that sticks out past the axle nut), and there is really nothing left but unrecogniseable threads. Sort of like melted metal. No threads really to speak of, although I can barely make out where they used to be.

2 schools of thought here. First, the threads are just ate up and gone. Therefore, when I pull the axle nut off, they wont be in the way anyway.

Second thought is that the rusty metal just sort of melts together and ends up filling the valleys between the threads. If this is what's happening, then that axle nut isn't going to come very far off before seizing to the axle shaft. What the heck should I do?

Are you sure you aren't just seeing the smaller diameter, "starter" section of the wheel studs? You are talking the studs that the lugnuts thread on to, correct? Often there is an unthreaded section about 1/4 inch long that helps get the lugnut started straight to reduce the liklihood of cross-threading the lugnuts.

Have you tried removing the lugnuts? If not, you may as well. If it really is a problem, it's better to find it in a controlled situation than along the road somewhere changing a flat tire.

-Rod

If you have a angle grinder put a wire brush on it and clean the threads. Then use a lot of P-B Blaster around the nut and try to remove. As mentioned its a lot better to find out what you have than an emergency repair. I'm sure you have decent thread under the nut. Keep the threads coated with axle greese when done.
Buy a thread die and clean up the axle before replacing. You can always use a grinder and grind close to the axle but don't touch they will stretch and then use a cold chisel and remove. I've done this on mower blades and the shaft was like new.

If you have a angle grinder put a wire brush on it and clean the threads. Then use a lot of P-B Blaster around the nut and try to remove. As mentioned its a lot better to find out what you have than an emergency repair. I'm sure you have decent thread under the nut. Keep the threads coated with axle greese when done.
Buy a thread die and clean up the axle before replacing. You can always use a grinder and grind close to the axle but don't touch they will stretch and then use a cold chisel and remove. I've done this on mower blades and the shaft was like new.

Not sure what you mean about using a grinder and grinding close? Please elaborate.

I'm not talking about lug nuts here. (BTW, I'm very automotive experienced). No, the whole threaded axle end (it's got independent suspension) is messed up. There are basically no threads, all the way up to the big ole 36mm axle nut. There were some threads, but I took a drill and a wire wheel, and cleaned up the rust. When I was finished, what I thought were threads must have been mostly rust, because they're long gone. Now it just looks like random shaped or melted metal. Looking hard, you can see where the threads used to be on some spots.

I was looking, and found that Kastar makes a set of spindle nut thread restorers. Unfortunately, I have no idea what size the threads used to be, so I'm not sure if the kit will have the right tap. But I'm concerned that if I use this kit, I might be cutting new threads that aren't exactly where the old threads are. So getting the nut off might become a problem.

Or I could just use a big wrench and try to get the nut to cut it's own threads coming off. But something tells me that would be a huge mistake. If it came off far enough, I could cut the nut off I guess. But it would be best if I could get the threads repaired. I'm hoping that by wire wheeling the threads, I may have just moved some metal from the threads down into the thread grooves, and that a tap/chase might just remove it. Looking at it sure doesn't make me believe that though. Anybody with experience on something like this?

If anybody knows 03 explorer rear axle thread size, that would also be a big help.

Interesting, in all my years around vehicles, I've never seen one where the threads on the axle/half shaft corroded. That seems very odd for such a new vehicle. Do you live near the ocean? Here in Iowa salt is used in the winter, but we don't get salt spray to add to the winter corrosion.

Once you've wire wheeled the threads, I think I'd resort to cranking off the axle nut and hoping it will all come apart fine. If not, you may need to chisel the nut off and replace the half shaft.

Any chance you could go to a salvage yard and find one that you could use to make thread measurements for the thread restorer sizing, or find a co-worker with a similar model?

Any chance you could post some pictures to get us all on the same page? Maybe with pics Way2Old can say, "Oh yeah, I've seen that 30 times and all you need to do is...."

-Rod

On the big nut I meant to grind down the flat until you are close to the axle threads. The nut will expand fron the heat get red hot. I then use a cold chisel and hit it so it spreads and breaks. When you go to Ford and buy two nuts ask the size. It will be metric diameter and pitch. At this point you can either buy the kit mentioned or go to http://www.ntxtools.com/ check for an OTC die. They make Ford tools so they can get you one. They sell numerous manufactures tools. http://www.snapon.com/ also sells them. If in a hurry buy from snapon they ship the same day. Their should be a tag on the axle get the number before buying a nut.
If you get a new nut you can also use a thread gage on it.

I'm thinking to buy this chase set...

http://www.aeincorporated.com/Kastar/?category=7&page=show_item_detail&id=116&qs=cGFnZT1zdG9yZSZjYXRlZ29yeT03

I took the other side off today, and the threads looked much better over there. So I decided to measure the OD with a dial caliper on each side. It turned out that the messed up side is like .980, while the good side is like .920. So now I know that there is more meat there than it came with. Which tells me there's probably threads under that junk. Apparently, by using a drill and a wire brush, I must have melted that rust and junk into the bottom of the axle shaft threads. What fooled me is the uniform black chrome-like appearance. I even used a hammer and sharp flathead small screwdriver, to see if I could possibly knock out some junk out of one thread. Just to prove that there really was threads under this gook. That didn't work, and no junk came out that way. But then I grabbed my Kastar chase set, and used one of the thread restoring files on it, where I could make out that there was threads before. Doing that, I was able to just start making some threads. More time will probably yield me a good bit more threads with that. The interesting thing was that the shavings and dust from using this file looked more like red rust dust than any metal being removed.

This, combined with the larger OD measured on the bad shaft, leads me to believe that when I wire wheeled this thing, I turned that rust into practically a molten liquid metal-like substance, that filled in the threads.

I'm going to work more with the file tomorrow, but I think Im going to buy the spindle chase set, use the thread files to get a start on it, and then work that chase set slowly with cutting oil. Hopefully I can actually clean out these threads and find they're still really there after all.

Remind me never to wire wheel threads without thinking it thru first again.

The other side responded fine to a (brass) wire wheel, and looks just fine. Not sure why one side would be so much worse off than the other. The goal here is to make this shaft work and look like new, and not have to replace the axle.

By the way, the axle is retained in the rear end by a 'circlip'. Don't know much about it, but basically it requires some sort of C shaped Ford tool to remove the axle from the rear end center section. I would like to buy the tool for removing the axles, but I would rather have an OTC kit than just the Ford special tool. Does anybody know what OTC tools would work for doing this?

Also, I measured the good rear axle, and it has 2.00 thread pitch, and is somewhere around 21 - 23 mm. The kastar kit only has one chase tap that's close to that, and it's a 24mm x 2.00 pitch. Anybody know if that's the one I need?

http://www.otctools.com/products/photos.php?catio=3
This is pictures of various otc tools.
http://www.ntxtools.com/ Just type in search what you want.

just replace the shaft(cv axle) it will have new threads and even a new nut.

http://www.axlesforless.com/ This place charges $65.00 for new axles.

http://www.axlesforless.com/ This place charges $65.00 for new axles.

They do not have axles for Explorers. In fact, nobody in the aftermarket seems to have rear axles. Strange. No used ones on Ebay either.

Does anybody know how to pull the rear axles on an IRS explorer? I'm thinking that you have to pull off the rear end cover and pop the C-clips out, much like a solid rear axle. Or that you have to take the CV boot off and remove some sort of clip. Either way sounds hard. Ford manual shows some sort of C shaped tool with an extension (resembling a very large crows foot wrench with a 12" extension) as a tool for removing the "circlip" in the rear axle. I was under the impression it was an external clip, but upon inspection, I don't see anything but the tripod sticking into a rubber seal.

So I worked on it some more yesterday. I managed to make some visible threads using the thread file. I also remeasured more carefully with a dial caliper. The messed up axle is smaller in OD at the threads. The good side measured 23.65, and the bad side was something like 22.5. So there is about 1 mm of threads missing. There are still some threads there, and a rethreading chase would probably reveal their shape better. But the bulk of the threads are just plain gone.

Now this is the threads on the axle that are past the nut. Obviously, under the nut they are still there or I wouldn't have a wheel on. So assuming I rethread the spindle, get the old nut off, do my hub job, and put it back together. Would I be able to 1) pull the axle back into the hub without the excess threads and 2) would I want to? Is there a danger to having the excess threads be missing?

Give this place a call they rebuild axles both front and rear. They also rebuild rack and pinions. I used them when I had a garage.
http://www.cvsource.com/ Click on products.
http://www.explorer4x4.com/axleseals.html

if you haven't got it done yet on the big nut you can go get the sames size nut and make sure threads are the same. put it on there go a little bit of at time screwing it in then backing it off then do it again a little bit more on second time an how many other times and it can make new grooves

good luck.

take off the brake caliper and mount, the rotor,rear tie rod and the separate lower ball joint. you might have to take the upper ball joint loose also but i dont think you have to. the main goal it to get the shaft out from the spindle.
next you will have to get the axle out of the differential. the cv axle has a C-clip just like any other cv axle. the trick to getting it out(it can be tough). You need a large pry bar and a big hammer. Take the end of the pry bar and put it against one of the lips on the large part of the axle(as it comes out of the diff.) smack the end of the pry bar as hard as you can. rotate the axle to the next lip and repeat. do this 3 or 4 times and its out.

I found out the proper tool for removing the axles is a C-shaped tool that is attached to a slide hammer. The circlip apparently sticks into a shallow groove inside the rear end chunk. With a couple pulls of the slide hammer, it's enough to pop the clip out I guess. Doing it this way doesn't require beating on anything, and doesn't pull on the guts of the cv joints either. Here's a link to some tools, for future readers...

C tool, slide hammer, extension, and also the hub puller tool that you would need to get the hub off:
http://www.otctools.com/products/detail.php?id=2045

Slide hammer set:
http://www.otctools.com/products/detail.php?id=2483

(This set is 1/2 the price of OTC's fullest slide hammer set, yet has 9/10 of the tools included. It can be had for about $90 shipped. What it doesn't have is the shortest or longest pulling legs, the extension, and the C tool).

Spindle rethreader:
http://www.tooltopia.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=8307

(The size seems to be M24x2.00 on the threads)

Axle nut set:
http://www.tooltopia.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=8664

(The nut appears to be 36mm).

CV Fork individually:
http://tools.ntxtools.com/search?p=R&srid=S11%2d3&lbc=ntxtools&w=cv%20fork&url=http%3a%2f%2fwww%2entxtools%2ecom%2fnetwork%2d tool%2dwarehouse%2fOTC%2d7507%2ehtml&rk=1&uid=215815013&sid=2&ts=custom&rsc=x-4v07BwxiL3NGcG&method=and&isort=score&view=list

Now all I need to find is a torque wrench capable of 203 ft lbs, for the axle nut, and a bearing driver set for the new rear end seal.

I still need to find an axle, to replace my damaged threads. I would like to find one online, that doesn't require me to ship mine there (to reduce down time). And I need to know if having no threads left on the axle (except where the nut is) would make it impossible to pull the axle back thru the hub. I'm guessing yes.