Bent Axles?

[DarkMesa8]

I'm taking the axles out of a crashed 97 GT for my 88 GT. The vehicle hit a telephone pole directly head on at 45 miles per hour. This visibly bent the rear end, the tubes are both bent at a slight angle forward. Both are about 1/4 inch forward at the ends. The rear end still spins smoothly, and we couldn't seen any wobble on the rotors as it was spun. The axles, however, had to be hammered out of the rear end.

There is no visible damage to the axles themselves. We put a straight edge on them, and nothing seemed to be bent.

Is there enough freeplay within the rear end to allow the axles to have escaped damage?

 

[TT91]

If the axle tubes are visibly bent, then no, you cannot re use it. The bearings are no longer in the same location, the tires may be out of alignment, could cause stress on the differential and c-clips.

 

[DarkMesa8]

Well, obviously if there was visible damage to the axles we wouldn't even be asking. But, they looked perfectly fine, and were wondering if its possible for axles to survive an axle-tube bend.

 

[TT91]

My bad, I got side tracked and was thinking you wanted to reuse to axle housing.Your call, if they look fine and seem to work, put them in and see what happens. Axles are pretty strong, good chance they're fine.

 

[Michael Yount]

I wouldn't chance it - certainly you've got other junked axle-housings to pick from that haven't been through the trauma that one has (hate to think about the driver if it hit the front hard enough to bend the axle tubes). I'd keep looking. If they are slightly bent, and you put them in yours they could damage other things. Besides, once you've started to work them hard, I'd bet they'll give you hard time returning them later with a 'they're bent' claim.