I work with a guy who bought an 8.8 at the columbus swap meet. It has a 3.73 gear but no axles, well he tried to put his axles in it but he cannot get the axles to slide back out far enough to put the cross pin back in, so what he did is grind 1/8" off the end of each axle. I do not know alot about rearends but it sounds like he did not get everything put together right, and maybe something is not seated all the way, and when it does he is going to have an awful lot of play. I told him that may be why the rearend had no axles to begin with. Let me know what you all think.. Thanks Guys...