Moving south to Stuart Florida

 

Still smiling after several expensive repairs

This is the continuation of our 2025/2026 Florida trip. The earlier part is at the end of the 2025 Dispatch from the Road.

January 1st, 2026

We departed Lake Saunders RV Park this morning, driving route 19 down to the Florida turnpike. For some odd reason we got on the Florida turnpike. We usually prefer country roads, and I guess I wasn’t feeling adventurous that morning. The turnpike was a no thinking route; we would not have to make any route decisions and would get off about a mile from our next campground.

It was smooth sailing with light New Years Day traffic, and the 150 miles went by quickly and without incident. Little did we know the 9.5 ZF rear axle was planning an incident of it's own and soon we would be searching for a repair shop. 

In 2024 with about 130000 miles on the truck, we experienced differential carrier bearing failure in New Mexico. We had it repaired in a local shop and thought we wouldn’t have to worry about that again. 

30,000 miles later the truck developed the same whining noise, and we knew the carrier bearings were failing again. What happened, who was at fault, we’ll never know. These ZF rears have a terrible reputation and should probably not be under trucks, not trucks carrying heavy loads anyhow.

 

As I detailed in a pervious Blog posting, I decided to rebuild the rear axle myself. Reconditioning the differential went very well, I replaced all the moving parts and precisely set all the measured parameters. As a last-minute decision, I decided I might as well replace the outer axle bearings and then it would be new from one end to the other.

I don’t think I mentioned this in the last telling of this story, but I went to two different auto supply stores for the bearings and was not satisfied with the bearings they offered. The roller bearings seemed to be very loose in the carrier. They all seemed to be offering the same Chinese made product. In my haste to finish the job and thinking I would not find anything any different I took the Chinese bearings and installed them in the axle.

After thought: I can only hope that if we ever go to war with China, they use the same crappy parts in their military equipment!

Because I had installed new differential gears, I followed the break in procedures to the letter. The outer axle bearings don’t have any break in requirements, but they got the procedure along with all the other moving parts. At 500 miles I changed the gear oil, everything looked perfect. 

The 2nd rebuild of the differential

Back to the travel log, As I said previously the trip south to Phipps RV Park was uneventful, that is until we backed in our site at the campground and I was unhooking the truck. I noticed some oil spots splattered on the right front of the travel trailer. I didn’t remember driving thru any oil on the way down here. I looked to the right rear tire of the truck, and it too was splattered with oil. A look at the axle just behind the wheel surprised me when I saw the oil leaking from the outer bearing. Was it a leaking oil seal or had one of the Chinese bearings I was so reluctant to install fail after no more than 2000 miles?

After thinking on it overnight, I accepted the reality that I could not fix this myself in the campground. I started online looking for a repair shop, A couple of them in the town of Stuart looked promising but before I handed the job over to someone I know nothing about, I needed to visit the shop and speak with the proprietor. I needed to have a gut feeling that they had the expertise to do differential work, and I could only make a decision by interviewing them and eyeballing their facility.

Stuart Auto Repair

 

The initial visit at Stuart Auto Repair went well, I spoke at length with the owner (Paul) and the shop Foreman (Freddy)I could see that it was an established shop and had been in business for a while. They had ten service bays and eight mechanics. Besides my initial positive vibe about the business, after our extensive conversation about the differential, they knew I was very knowledgeable about the subject. In fact, I think they thought I was in the automobile repair business so I was confident they would be honest with me. We got a rental car and left the truck. They would be contacting me once they had disassembled the damaged side of the axle. 

PS: The rental was a Chevy Malibu, nice car…….for short people! Definitely not enough door opening height for an old guy who don’t bend so well!

Later that day they called and said you better come back to the shop and look at what they found. The right wheel bearing had disintegrated and had worn thru the bearing carrier, scarring the axle housing. After discussing several repair options Paul said he would get cost estimates, and we could make a decision on Monday.

what's left of the axle bearing

damage to axle housing

Having the weekend to mull over the repair option, I had already made up my mind by Monday morning. I went to Stuart auto first thing and told Paul I would save him some time because I had decided what I wanted done. Having spoken with me several times already, I think he knew I qualified to make a judgment on the work to be done.

The damage to the axle housing was repaired, new bearings and seal installed. The big expense was the axle had to be replaced. I also had them replace the axle bearing and seal on the driver’s side because it had the same Chinese junk bearing in it. 

The last thing Freddy the shop foreman told me was not to worry about the repair, he considered it a permanent fix and not something just to get me home. I am comfortable with the repair but my opinion of ZF differentials is still very low. To quote an ancient Chinese parable, “we’ll see.”

"We'll see"