Hi All, We were on our way home from FL Sunday and our son's '03 Crown Vic decided to vent all it's rear axle lube out the RH axle seal. After it started making grinding noises and adding some drag, he decided to abandon it at an Alabama truck stop. After 4 hours of attempted repairs and trying to find a non-existent rental car, we (us, him, his wife, and her mother) all loaded up in our CTS for the remaining 400 mile journey home. He and a bud will be heading back over there this weekend with a lowboy to pick it up. We're hoping to find a replacement axle somewhere along the I-10 corridor between Beaumont, TX and Mobile, AL. Anyone?
i see those all the time. some times the ford dealerships will have them for cheap and other times they will want your first borne.
Maybe he'll get lucky and it will just be the axle bearing(s) causing the drag. He thinks the noise was the clutch plates disintegrating. I'm thinking the gear set will be rather "blue" in color... Will prolly do an autopsy before buying a replacement axle just in case it's salvageable. We did look at the vent hose and it was plugged solid, hence the "spew job".
You've got Pull-A-Part locations along I-10 in Lafayette, Baton Rouge, New Orleans and Mobile. Lafayette has one of each '04, '03, '01, '99 and '98 Vics, and a 99 Merc. Baton Rouge as two '03, one '00, two 99's and a '98 CV, three '00-'98 Mercs. New Orleans has an '06, '05, '01, three '00 and two '98 CVs. Mobile just has some older Vics and Mercs, 96 is the newest. Complete disc brake rearend cost is $117.31 with $26.80 core and $18.82 warranty.
Well, turns out to have been not so bad after all, just the PASS side axle was damaged. The bearing even looked good, but will be changed as the new axle shaft "kit" comes with the shaft, bearing, seal, lug studs, & nuts. There was some metal dust "paste" in the axle sump but the gear set looked great. We'll flush the tube after we get the bearing out and hope for the best...
