No, studs, it is a I bought it from the original owner. The drums are studded and there are these half moon shaped split spacers. You loosen them by TAPPING on the side of the axle at each stud and the spacers pop out...Mark

 

Interesting.

 

"You" brought it up like you had seen it before, like maybe a "friend" did it...

 

Okay, I will stick my nose in the axle stud versus bolt debate.

There are several Dodge/Dana rears on the place, plus a bunch more Ford/Danas.

Most of these have 7/16 BOLTS holding the axle-flange to the hub.

HOWEVER, some of them --- the son's 1990 W-250 for example --- have STUDS with CONICAL split-washers and nuts.

The axle-flanges on these rears have mating conical counter-bores that receive the conical split-washers.

In my opinion, the stud/conical-washer set-up is by far the superior design, as it prevents the possibility of the bolts backing off a bit and thus allowing a bit of "slack action" that will soon "egg out" the bolt-holes and shear the bolts.

I have seen that happen on more than a few rears; none of my own --- thank goodness.


SO, if one has the more prevalent plain old bolts holding the axle-flange, then --- YES --- it is sufficient to remove the bolts and simply slide the axle clear of the gasket to allow rotation.

If one has the far more rare stud-type axles, then that would necessitate the axle be moved farther out to clear the studs.

 

Both of my 89's have studs. The 92 has bolts.

 

Not necessarily so; read my above post.

 

Then I stand corrected. I hadn't seen any dodges with studs.

I have seen some fords with them though. It must be a Dana thing, they just used whatever they had in the parts bin.

 

To add to what I already said, the axle-flanges of the stud-type hubs are not interchangable with those of the bolt-type, due to the flanges having the conical counter-bores, UNLESS one replaces the bolts with studs and also uses the conical split-washers.


Although I have yet to see one, I am sure that there are also Danas out there that have plain old axle-flanges and studs, instead of bolts; but, these would NOT have the conical washers, nor the conical counter-bores.

An axle such as that would have plain old flat-washers and nuts.

 

Might be an early 89-90 thing with the studs. Maybe368's, Bearkiller's son's, and mine are all 90's with studs. Wonder if they changed it in 91 or maybe 92...

 

89-90 axles had studs. This is also a generally accepted way to tell axle spline count witout disassembly. Studs=35 spline/ bolts= 32 spline.

 

Oh I smell what you're stepping in. Sorry.

 

I also have a 90 with studs, but a 91.5 rear end that I have has bolts.
So maybe the axle flange bolts started in either 91 or 91.5.
Bruce

 

The studs vs bolt changeover is roughly in line with the non-ic/ic changover. Weather Dana or just Dodge switched over in that timeframe, I do not know.

 

Seeing as how I have numerous older pre-1989 Danas around here that all have the plain old bolts, and seeing as how the stud set-up is so much stronger, I tend to think that Dodge specified the stud set-up on the first Dodge/Cummins trucks to prevent the likelihood of torque shearing off the weaker bolts.

With the advent of the I/C, did not HP and TORQUE also drop somewhat ??


I do know as fact from a Cummins engineer acquaintance that many of the pre-1989 test trucks snapped axles like pencils and shelled ring-gear teeth like corn-cobs, until the 6BT was de-tuned extensively to get the torque under control.

 

So what I glean from this is that the early guys are the only studs around here ...Mark