HELP! Inner Axles Have No Articulation...

[Zambuzan]

So I dropped my rear subframe to change out all the bushings. Now I have almost everything put back together when I ran into a problem. I was tightening up my driveshaft bolt when I realized it was getting pretty difficult to turn the driveshaft itself while in neutral. Long story short, I unbolted the axles as shown and the driveshaft spun freely. So clearly, the axles are the culprit.

I spent about 2hrs figuring out the inner axle mechanism and I think I understood it well, but when I put all of the ball bearings in place (and inside the cup), there is absolutely no articulation in the inner joint! Yes there’s a bunch of grease and yes I made sure to put all the balls in the correct place. What should I do??

i followed this video for reference: https://youtu.be/PEOA4Fddofc

[ErickEnriquez]

I think you put the cage for the balls in wrong. It has to go in a certain way.

[Zambuzan]

I think you put the cage for the balls in wrong. It has to go in a certain way.

From fiddling around with this greasy mess, the cage seems like its reversible. I purposely tried to install both side differently, but I ended up with the same result: the ball bearings completely static with no movement. I am aware that the surrounding cup is spiraled. So clearly, there has to be movement but I honestly don’t see another way to install this things... I followed all of the steps from the video above except I already had the middle splined piece installed. ;(

[ErickEnriquez]

I wanna say I had this problem on my 2002 and something was flipped either the cage or the large piece that houses the cage and the balls. Something was in the wrong orientation and it just took a little trial and error to get it fixed

[Zambuzan]

I just drove 300+ miles with the stiff inner joints, lots of vibrations and clunking when the rear compresses... lol rip diff roller bearings I guess... contemplating just forking over $530 for GKN axles... :(

[JGood]

The inner race and outer race (the parts with the spiraled grooves) have to be assembled so that the grooves oppose directions as the joint articulates. It's possible to put the outer race on backwards, and have no articulation.

Look at this pic. The narrow gaps in the outer race line up with the wide gaps in the inner race, and vice versa.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploads24/IMG_08041422558140.jpg

[Zambuzan]

The inner race and outer race (the parts with the spiraled grooves) have to be assembled so that the grooves oppose directions as the joint articulates. It's possible to put the outer race on backwards, and have no articulation.

Look at this pic. The narrow gaps in the outer race line up with the wide gaps in the inner race, and vice versa.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploads24/IMG_08041422558140.jpg

Ahhh jeeezzz... I could’ve sworn this is how I installed it. What a pain it is to check while the axles are already installed. Thanks for the helpful picture.

[Zambuzan]

Update: problem fixed!
I took it to a shop who lifted the car and fixed my problem. We immediately saw that the left output shaft was popped out of place (yikes, this could've been worse). Anyway, I explained the issue and they got to work. Thankfully the shop fixed the orientation of the cage, cup, and 6 ball bearings to get me back on the road. I guess all is well now! And the diff didn't explode, even after my backyard rebuild!