About two years ago I bought a Ford 641 that had been picked up in a tornado and dropped on the left front wheel. The wheel was pushed back about two inches. The guy I bought it from said the outer part of the axle was bent.I got on this forum, told my problem, and went looking for a new axle. Several of the posters on this forum told me that that part of the axle does not bend, it's cast and it breaks. Since I could see nothing else wrong I bought the axle anyway. Put new bushings and a bearing in the spindle and reassembled it. Still didn't look right but it did look better. Ran it all summer, up and down the mountain, moving dirt with the bucket. The other day while changing oil and greasing it I found the real problem. The bolt holding the axle to the horizontal support from the rear was sheared off on the bottom and bent backwards. Looked perfectly normal from the top. I shudder to think of what would of happened if the top of that bolt had snapped off when I was coming down the mountain with a load of dirt. Some long dead Ford engineer earned his pay when he designed that axle assembly. I also find it humbling to know I looked right at that problem for two years and didn't see it. I guess we humans tend to see what we expect to see.
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