Removing One Drive Axle

Wouldnt it just be easier to buy a 2 axle truck insted of taking a drive axle out and have all the work and expense?

 

You would think. The company I work for does this alot. Every single axle tractor we have, and we have alot of 'em, was originally a tandem.

 

i cant see how its possible to burn it up if you do it the way i was describing. Theres nothing that changes for power to the spider gears or any other sort of heat or binding up that can cause a failure. And actually there should be less heat being created because the spiders are not having to turn and bind up to compensate for mismatched tires and such. The only thing that would be turning are the bearings that hold the center diff which turn regardless.

When you lock it up with both axles on the ground you cause a massive amount of binding up and heat in the spider gears cause you got the two axles that might be rotating at slightly different speeds from different tire circumference thats what burns them up.

 

We removed all rims/tires to check for a bent axle. When we started to run the axles up to 45-50 miles an hour there was a horrible chatter sound. The axles where level and on blocks. I don't know if this would happed in this case.

 

as stated the way it's usually done is to move the 3rd axle up the the 2nd axle position and chop the frame behind it. But it's no roblem to just remove the second axle. any driveline shop will build you the new driveshafts you will need. You will also need another carrier bearing.

if your not pulling much weight that will be fine. If you are still pulling alot of weight you actually need to upgrade the axle to one from a 44k lb suspension setup as it seems the bearings don't last too long in the 40k lbs units when run single and pulled heavy. But this is usually only a problem when you are keeping both axle just making it a single drive. so your still pulling 80k lbs