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1988 axle here and definitely had snap rings on end of the spindle and no washer. This is in addition to outer snap rings.
CK5
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GM 10 Bolt front, can’t get axle shaft out of the spindle enough to install inner snap ring!
- Thread starter RockBottomRacing
- Start date
Unless the locking hub actually requires the snaprings to hold it together, they don't HAVE to be in there. With every common manual locking hub I've seen the snapring is optional. They are required for the auto hubs.
The snapring can (but not always will) pull the stub outboard to push the big rubber "seal" against the back of the spindle and this can help it seal better. In practical use my K5 is a good example: we broke an auto hub when I was a kid and my dad put manual plastic dial warn hubs on it and never ran a snapring at all. I ran that axle another 15 years and never had problems with any of the bearings and it was a daily driver through colorado winters for all of that with some offroad work in some water toward the end. Takeaway: the seals don't have to be perfect to work good enough for most situations.
The problem with making any specific claims with this system is that the tolerances on all these parts add up and are huge. In practice, the ujoint has to be on the balljoint centerline when the axle turns. There's nothing that says the snapring is going to hold the stub in that position so if the knuckle machining isn't perfect (and it likely isn't) it'll all need some float anyway. You may also find that unless you have to push that stub out a little it's not going to make the rubber seal at the back work anyway.
We've played with this on our D60s running our flange kits by putting spacers between the spindle and the stubshaft snapring. At one point I built steel spacers and messed with it to where it was all just perfect but the spacers were specific to the drive gear I was using at the time and even different from one side of the truck to the other. They were set up to put an amount of tension on the seal that I thought was just right and not pull the stub out too hard to make the spacer rub on the spindle nose. Someone else worked on it later and we ended up with different drivegears and the spacers messed up the end of one of my spindles. We've since started using locking hubs and not messing with that detail but I've thought that a PVC spacer would work well for that since it could be easily sanded to a thickness that was "just right". This is one place where I think the original drivegear system with the giant spring pushing the slug out was the right way to go since it would keep the seal tight but still allow some float to let the ujoint align with the balljoint center when it's turned.
The snapring can (but not always will) pull the stub outboard to push the big rubber "seal" against the back of the spindle and this can help it seal better. In practical use my K5 is a good example: we broke an auto hub when I was a kid and my dad put manual plastic dial warn hubs on it and never ran a snapring at all. I ran that axle another 15 years and never had problems with any of the bearings and it was a daily driver through colorado winters for all of that with some offroad work in some water toward the end. Takeaway: the seals don't have to be perfect to work good enough for most situations.
The problem with making any specific claims with this system is that the tolerances on all these parts add up and are huge. In practice, the ujoint has to be on the balljoint centerline when the axle turns. There's nothing that says the snapring is going to hold the stub in that position so if the knuckle machining isn't perfect (and it likely isn't) it'll all need some float anyway. You may also find that unless you have to push that stub out a little it's not going to make the rubber seal at the back work anyway.
We've played with this on our D60s running our flange kits by putting spacers between the spindle and the stubshaft snapring. At one point I built steel spacers and messed with it to where it was all just perfect but the spacers were specific to the drive gear I was using at the time and even different from one side of the truck to the other. They were set up to put an amount of tension on the seal that I thought was just right and not pull the stub out too hard to make the spacer rub on the spindle nose. Someone else worked on it later and we ended up with different drivegears and the spacers messed up the end of one of my spindles. We've since started using locking hubs and not messing with that detail but I've thought that a PVC spacer would work well for that since it could be easily sanded to a thickness that was "just right". This is one place where I think the original drivegear system with the giant spring pushing the slug out was the right way to go since it would keep the seal tight but still allow some float to let the ujoint align with the balljoint center when it's turned.
