Has anyone ever repaired a front axle?

The bearings can spin and reduce the axle diameter. Porsche AND Nissan (and lots of others) with old school front wheel bearings all have this issue.

In the past I've simply replaced the strut. Both Z car and Porsche struts are getting rare and I was wondering if anyone had tried plating or maybe powder coat to restore the original diameter.

Thoughts, suggestions?

I never really considered it. There are plenty of 914-4 front struts available. And if you want 5 lug, there are plenty of 911 struts available too.

Plating? how much is needed here?

maybe a couple thou at the most

I’ve done this as a track side repair with red loc-tote and good results

I've southern engineered these in the past as well.

Red Loctite, Green "sleeve retainer", peening the shaft...

All of those "fixes" are temporary in my book and the "glue it in" versions do not allow further wheel bearing adjustments without re-doing the glue.

What I would like to find is something to slightly increase the diameter. 2 thousands would work fine.

What I see OFTEN is the outer bearing spinning slightly and you end up with the outer bearing having too much "wiggle" on the shaft.

Makes proper wheel bearing adjustment more difficult.

I'm NOT trying to fix something that has turned color or cut a groove.

I'm trying to improve bearing fit on a basically sound part.

I spent A LOT of time reading up on this when I found that my front spindles were too worn to reuse, and the conclusion that I came to was there wasn't a great or long-term fix for this that was worth pursuing. Trying to build up the spindle via powdercoat, or something that could fairly easily be removed is low on this list of things I would try.

There was a post on Pelican about someone electroplating the spindle, but one person pointed out that it could weaken the spindle itself. (Not a part I'd be comfortable risking a failure with).


Sounds like yours may not need replacing, but if it's out of spec I'd recommend just finding a good used set.
It would be awesome though if these were made available again. Too bad it's all one piece.

The gun world has some coatings used to tighten pistol slides that might work.

I asked my son Austin to look.

My problem is almost all the used stuff I've seen has had too much clearance, especially on the outer bearing. The inner is seldom an issue.

Being able to buy bearings with +.001-2 tighter ID would work BETTER!

You just carefully hand fit...

I've never seen wheel bearings offered in under sizes.

I've got a set of EXCELLENT 914 units, but I want to move up to 3.5" 911 junk.

Just wondered if anyone has skinned this cat...

They don’t make duct tape for nothing

Remember that powder coating is essentially plastic. It's a tough coating but not structural.

@technicalninja


I had a conversation about this with Tony Callas on a strut I brought him. It was a rare Koni. It was suggested the best fix was to
drill out the plug weld and replace it with a better spindle. To slide the spindle off of a Koni the bottom plug that accepts the ball joint has to come out. What was interesting was that Koni and Boge have the same spindles as the spindles come from the same manufacture. it was also pointed out that the back side of the spindle has a centering intent that is online with the spindle.
so it is conceivable to machine down the bearing surface and machine a sleeve to fit.

Flame spraying and remachine is the second best option to Bruce’s solution

You guys are just trying to spend extra money. . . Right?

This post is very timely. My spindles were just shipped yesterday from a plater. My 911 3" struts had an issue with wear on the spindle surface where the outer wheel bearing sits. Specifically the bottom. If you look there will be a step that you can feel or see. The symptoms I was having: no matter how tight you made the outer nut for adjustment the wheel bearings still felt loose. Oh, and at the race track when applying the brakes at any speed over 100 mph the steering wheel shakes like a mofo... The left sides seem to have the most wear. I am on my second set of used 3" struts. New 3" don't seem to be available. I want to keep the smaller lighter 3" with my aluminum Brembos. I decided to break the struts down by removing the spindles. That was harder than I thought. I sent the spindles out to be hard chrome plated. The basic process is to grind the spindles undersize, hard chrome plate them oversize, then grind down back to spec. I did this one before on my 3.0 crank where the cam drive gear sits (another long story). This has worked perfectly for the crank so I figured I'd give it a try for the spindles. $275 for each spindle, plus tax and shipping. Electronic Chrome and Grinding, Santa Fe Springs CA. It took a year to get the work done with me calling every week the last two months...



Fortunately these are an extra struts that I bought so the car is still drivable.

Thanks for all the replies!

The last post is WHY I'm hunting this.

If I provision a 300+ whp car I DO NOT want "shake like a mofo" above 100mph!

Interesting to see someone took this to the "Next Level".

I'd bet hard chroming will work kick ass!

Expensive and time consuming...

Price seems reasonable given what's involved. Waiting for a year, not so much.

Not for nothing...

Thinking that there are plenty of people here that can find a very good use for duct tape. At the very least, they can joyfully visualize it.