Shop installed a rebuilt passenger side CV/axle shaft in my son's 97 850GLT auto and it runs/drives fine but now leaks fluid badly at the trans seal area. Pulling the shaft today to check the seal - which was fine and not new but relatively fresh - I noticed that the axle had come out of the carrier bearing without me having to remove the retaining mount bolts. Not being a full-time Volvo guy I had to look this all up and I *think* the carrier bearing is supposed to be hard pressed on the rebuilt axle shaft and therefore would retain the shaft with the bearing mount n a constant running position in the seal lip...and if the shaft were wandering back and forth in the seal it might tend to leak. Or something.

Is this correct? Does the new carrier bearing want to be firmly pressed on the shaft and is that how the trans case part of the shaft is located? And if yes, I wonder what to do now. I've - as a ranch fix - roughed up an axle stub evenly with a hammer and punch and Loctite-ed a new bearing race on...but no one was looking.

Seal and seal running surface on shaft are not suspect.

Thoughts please? And thanks.

 

The center bearing on the right axle is pressed on. - Imported (cheap) axles look pretty and might work but they all are not quite dimensionally perfect. I usually just use a hammer and punch to raise the metal of the axle at the edge of the bearing race and prevent it from sliding off again.

 

Thanks. Exactly the data I was looking for. Loctite and a punch it is.

 

Upon closer inspection the carrier shaft has a step of .020-.030 in the bearing surface and clearly wants the bearing to go on first closest to the CV joint where it fits nicely, followed by the smaller retaining ring which will need to be pressed on to the smaller part of the shaft and will hold the bearing in place nicely.

Problem is, the parts diagram I downloaded from Volvo shows the retaining ring going on first, then the bearing - which in this case physically won't work. Clearly the mechanic did the bearing first in the correct place but didn't press the retaining ring on, as the ring fell on the floor when I pulled the shaft out, leaving the bearing in the mount.

I guess the question is: do I have the correct part here? Or a bad drawing? I never saw the one that came out.

 

Looks like that 850 axle does have a locking ring, Picture courtesy Amazon.com
And yes Volvos parts on that axle are certainly not drawn to scale - The "snap ring" #7 is not larger than #6 the bearing.

 

Nice. You got it. I never looked at the names of the parts on the drawing, I just assumed the big one shaped like a bearing was the bearing and the little one was a lock ring...so probably it's a bad drawing with those 2 parts reversed in the illustration but correctly listed in the writing.

My part looks just like the Amazon picture and everything fits that way, so here we go.

Thank you.