Update - 88 745GLE, 228K miles. Free car. Needed a rear axle. Actually all that was wrong was that someone started using it as a parts car. One rear axle shaft had been stolen, rather than replace the bad wheel bearing in another car. Turned out the other side was leaking gear oil quite badly. And the pinion seal was gone. And the parking brake finger was all chewed up on the side where the axle was changed. And the brake cables were broken.
So, ok, the junkyard gets $75 for one axle shaft or $120 for the entire unit. Send me the entire unit. FIrst one is definitely NFG. One bad axle seal, two destroyed backing plates, no parking brake hardware AND a bad pinion seal. And it goes crunk-crunk-crunk-crunk as you rotate it. Great. So they got in another one, a much newer car (didn't see it to figure out the year). Sent the axle over, no charge. Looks good, turns freely, even had decent calipers on it. HAd the lower torque arm still attached.
So we tore it down, cleaned it up, and about noon today got busy removing the old axle. Had it out of the car by 3pm. Not bad considering we're being extra careful and I've got two helpers that aren't mechanics. Pretty good people though, and very willing to learn. We never could get the lower "dogbone" control arm off the new axle, so we put it in with that attached. I actually got the axle into the car by myself in about an hour. I learned why 740's never need trailing arm bushings... interesting setup. Actually quite easy to take apart and also reassemble. So we're working on breaking loose the bolt for the torque arm. The rusty POS axle in the car- no problem. The bolt came out when you breathed on it. The new axle, not so good. Even bought a 1/2 inch 18mm 6-point socket jsut for the occasion. Impact wrench- no good. Breaker bar, nope, not working. With a pipe on it- still nothing. Breaker bar, lifted with the floor jack- Ah-hah it turned! SPin it out with the impact wrench. Only the bolt looks short... uh oh. Sheared the bolt. DAmn.
Well, anyway, we finished up the whole rest of the assembly so the axle's back in the car, and I'm almost back together except for the parking brake on the left side. Seems the beautiful hardware on the new axle is quite different from the hardware on the old- the parking brake cable has a different sheath design at the bracket on the axle, and the cable end is different at the lever in the drum. The old cars had a double finger on the parking brake and a single cable end- the end of the newer car's cable (cut off 6" from the axle) had a double end, and the brake operating lever has a single bracket. So I could connect the cables to each other, but not the old cable in the car to the new lever. Joy.
If I get those things straightened out, we'll have a car that can actually be driven. Imagine that!
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Rob Bareiss, New London CT ::: '87 244DL/M47- 221K, 88 744GLE- 202K, 91 244 181K, 88 244GL 145K