Drive axle "bushings" going loose

[Tom Y]

Artvonne, I changed to see if it would make it make the dropbox run less noisy-smoother. I could not see any difference at all, some have said it would.  Tom Y

[zubzub]

On cars they put urethane/plastic bushings to tighten/stiffen the ride and because they wear out slower.  I don't care for them on cars but I don't race so the harshness is not appreciated.....I have no idea how they would affect a bus in handlling but they probably wear slower.

[artvonne]

You might want to get a torque wrench and check to see if you got the lug nuts in the 450-500lb. range. Just using a cheater bar you could be quite a ways off one way or another.

  The way those big lugs tighten up, and because they are dry, they creak and jerk as you get tight. Squalking is the word I think. A torque wrench could easily read high enough torque without actually being anywhere near the indicated torque. This was the reasoning behind changing the way head bolts were torqued, where many now torque to a lower torque indication, then a further 90 degrees. They need to be well oiled and very clean to get to full torque without jerking. The 90 degree crank puts all the bolts at more equal torque.

  I'll stick to using a bigger bar where I can feel them get fully tight.

[daveola]

When your diiferential radius rod bushings wear out the bus steering tends to wander, they don't make the tires blow.

The mechanic that looked at it would disagree with you..

But my "home" mechanic does not, so he (and I) stand corrected.  Looks like there's more than enough clearance between the inners and the shocks/chassis/suspension/etc.. such that it can't make the tires blow, don't know why the emergency mechanic told me otherwise, since he certainly wasn't going to profit from it.

At this point the best guess is that the inners were recaps (they came on the bus) and after a few thousand miles they both decided to blow in the way that they did.  A bit of bad luck, possibly, but probably not much more.  Time to get some spare air bags to carry around so I don't get fleeced on the emergency air bag delivery again.

Unfortunately my "home" mechanic found some other problems on my bus, but that's another post..