Axle vents

[ken]

After spending the weekend sermerged in muddy water the gear oil the the axles look like milk. My truck has the deep water fording kit ,witch pressurises the bell housing with air when you throw the fording valve. I'm thinking of plumbing air lines to the axles and T-case to keep them water free. I noticed the axles have two vents. One on the third member and one on the axle tube.
If i regulate the air passing to the gear boxes mabye i can keep the oil from blowing out the other vent. Or the seals for that matter. Has anyone made any mods to keep the axles water free?

 

[spicergear]

I had a '53 Reo that I pulled one of the rears out of to put in my M715. My M715 had a vent system that connected both axles, T-case, tranny and engine as a factory set up. I thought I might get into some deep goop with it so I connected vents to the axles and plumbed it up to a high point in the truck. I don't have it pressurized. My '53's rear, however, did NOT have a vent on it. I took off the eight bolt top plate and drilled and tapped that then screwed a rubber brake line into it then hooked it to the rest of the system. I looked at the factory axle bleeders and didn't have much faith in them keeping much out.

 

[ken]

That was my next option. I was thinking of replacing all the vents with hose barbs and plumbing fuel line from them to the top of the air intake mushroom. With a manafold mounted to the frame so i would only have to run one line up to the mushroom.

 

[spicergear]

I think that's really the easiest thing to do.

 

[Recovry4x4]

I'll pipe in here! The earlier axles had the vents in the side cover of the 3rd member. The later ones have the vent in the tube. Ken, in your case you probably have newer tubes with a depot case that originally came from an older truck. The problem I've seen with some trucks is it goes the other way around. A newer 3rd member is installed in an older tube and ther are no vents at all. There is an interesting 2 part article in MV magazine that was written by my good friend Bjorn Brandstedt on fording the deuce. His truck was here at the house Wednesday. He has done a bunch of cool things to his including pressurizing the diffs. Check out MV magazine #93 of Oct 2002 and #107 Feb 2005. For those with a cable or DSL connection here is a link to the 10 minute video of the swim.
http://tired-iron.mounet.com/fording_deuce.wmv

 

[spicergear]

Recovery, the deuce I pulled that axle out of was a '53 Reo. The nuts on the studs holding the chunk in were nearly rusted off. None of all three of the axles had vents on them anywhere. Truck was a factory singles truck and didn't appear to have ever had any part of the axles opened up. Maybe this was early-early.

 

[Recovry4x4]

Hmm, that's weird! I've not had many older deuces but I did have an 1952 M275. I have some detailed pics of it, I'll have to look for vents on that pig. The ones I've encoutered where the vents were eliminated via swapping parts usually had seal issues. By the way, I haven't forgot about your stuff!

 

[stefos]

I 'll look on my V17 too. It is so early that it has air suplay socets on both sides of the firewall.(right and left)

 

[spicergear]

Ken, each of the three axles did have sealing issues and were pretty gunky in spots. I sold that, rusted frame, cab, and two axles, to a buddy of mine. I'll stop over and snap a couple pics. Yeah, I was pretty surprised when I found it had no vents too! I remembered early on, I swapped a Dana 70 with a Detroit into my M715 (swapping out the open D70) and forgot to take a piece of electrical tape off the vent line from when I transported it in the rain. The guy told me he had put a new pinion seal in it, but it leaked BADLY and good thing for me...I happened to see the tape closing off the vent line as I was crawling out from under the truck to call him and give him sh*t. WHEW!

 

[jeepthrills]

R4x4:

What kind of rims are those on that deuce in the video??

 

[spicergear]

Those are factory single style wheels found on trucks like the M34 6 wheeled truck and the older GMC 2-1/2 ton trucks. They have about a 2"-3" difference in the offset from the 10 wheel dually trucks. The single cannot be used for dual applications, the offset doesn't allow it. Usually the Single wheeled trucks had 1100's on them.

 

[Recovry4x4]

Spicergear is right on! I might have a set of 6 coming up for grabs here soon!

 

[stefos]

Looked at V17. Every axle has vents on differential inspection covers. No vents on axle tubs. Also my M35 has the same arangement on the two axles. The third has no vents at all and has seal isues. I have to fix it.

 

[deuce or die]

The rear on my deuce has two breathers on it (one on the tube, and one on the inspection cover) It's good to know that it isn't some wierd hillbilly mod, but just parts from different years