Ford F150 Front Axle Replacement - Part 2

NOTE: This is part 2 of a 2 part article. Click here for page 1 of the article.

Here’s the rebuilt axle assembly next to the old one. You can see on the old one the light colour area on the boot on the left side, that’s where the boot is torn and the white grease has escaped and covered the inside of the wheel and top of the lower a-arm. There was probably 2 lbs of grease in there!

Lubricate the splines of the new axle shaft with all-purpose grease.

Slide the new axle up and into place from underneath, be careful to get the splines into the bearing assembly. Rotate it a bit to get the splines aligned.

Another pic in the wheel well with the new shaft in place.

Replace the axle nut. I re-used the old one as the new one didn’t look as good (smaller shoulder). It’s up to you, the new shaft comes with a new nut.

I just hand-tightened the nut at this point. Next, insert the inside flange nuts one by one. The axle assembly can be easily rotated provided you have it in 2WD so you can get to each flange bolt easily. Tighten them with a wrench but not 100% tight. You’ll need the tire on there to hold things in place as you go 100% tight.

Even if the flange bolts aren’t on 100%, now you can blast on the 35mm axle nut. Don’t over do it. Manual says 65-90 ft.lbs.

Slide on the brake rotor.

Replace the brake caliper.

You can make it easier by using one lug nut to hold the brake rotor in place as you fasten the caliper.

Once again, use the 18mm socket & breaker bar or torque wrench to tighten these. Not sure what the torque spec is but I used 100 ft.lbs. These suckers are big and need to be on there tight.

Replace the sway bar vertical link and insert the bolt/rod from the top. With the jack stand under the front frame.

Work the hydraulic jack up or down to make replacement easier.

Use a socket & wrench top and bottom to tighten it up.

Remove the lug nut that was holding the rotor on for caliper mounting if you used it.

Mount the wheel and hand-tighten the lug nuts so you don’t cross thread anything.

With 35mm socket and torque wrench the spec is 65-90 ft.lbs for the axle nut. I think I went to 100 ft.lbs for good measure. It’s up to you. It doesn’t change tension on the bearings like a traditional axle nut.

Replace the axle nut retainer/cover.

Insert a new cotter pin in the axle holding the retainer.

Raise the hydraulic jack, remove the jack stand. Lower the hydraulic jack just enough to touch the tire on the ground. Torque the lug nuts to spec. I use around 100 ft. lbs on each. Now crawl underneath and tighten the axle flange nuts one by one with 12mm 12 point socket or 12mm wrench.

Use the hydraulic jack to just get the wheel/tire off the ground, then rotate the tire/axle so each 12mm bolt is easy to tighten. I did two at a time, then rotated to the next too. Spec is 65-90 ft.lbs but I didn’t have a socket, used a wrench so just tightened them up real tight. You can use loktite if you’re worried but there was enough corrosion on mine to make removal/replacement difficult (high friction in the threads) so you shouldn’t have any worries of these coming loose.

That’s it, you’re done. All you need to do is clean up all your tools and old parts.

The Haynes manual suggests removing the tire, then using a huge breaker bar to hold the lug nuts while you remove the axle nut and the axle flange bolts. This is next to impossible to do without help. You’re better off leaving the tire and wheel on the truck while you remove all the nuts/bolts from the axle. Makes things a whole lot easier.

Enjoy!