HELP? front axle shaft discrepancy

[scavengerdog]

got a 98 jimmy. went to replace left front axle shaft. both auto value and napa shafts were wrong, had male inner end. thought they had left and right mixed up, got the right side one, looks close, has female inner end, but too big. called the gm dealer, they ran the vin# and faxed me a pic of the axle shaft that allegedly cam in the truck. looks just like the aftermarket ones... wrong. can't get a good history on the truck so don't know if axle was changed, but looks like regular front axle/differential assembly. anyone?
Edit: i have already had the axles out. the left is not as it is supposed to be. ended up just putting new boots on it and reinstalling it until i find an answer.

[truckdude239]

i just did axles in a 98 jimmy and bleft front is male on the inner and the right side is female i would go ahead and pull the driver side axle . the driver side engages right into the differential. where as the right side has a shaft in the the diff that it locks into

[truckdude239]

Did you figure this out yet

[scavengerdog]

not yet. but because i have the truck up and running it's not high priority. however, it's for sale, and i would like to have info for next owner. it's just odd. have had many of them apart and never ran into this before.

[mr48chev]

I found out a long time ago that I never say left or right when working on a vehicle. It's always drivers side or passenger side. I've had too many customers stand right beside me in front of a car and say that "it's right there on the left side of the car" while pointing to the passenger side of the car. I cut up an 86 S-10 Blazer a few months ago and believe that Truckdude239 nailed it with his description. Driver's side goes into the center section and has a splined male end while the passenger side has a flange that bolts to the flange on the stub shaft that comes out of the center section.

[truckdude239]

passager side on the 98 is not a flange but it slides in with a felmale end on it there is a rod about 2-3 foot long that locks intot eh diff and to teh passager side axle

[scavengerdog]

i am well aware of the whole left and right fiasco we face with customers. the left is the drivers side. the left has a female end on the inner joint on this truck. period. i should have taken pictures. there are oddities out there. if you work on enough cars they find you. aftermarket conversions and backyard creations that are so well done you would swear they are a factory variation. truckdude did nail the description of what it SHOULD look like. if i didn't have so many projects i would take it apart just to take pix......

(sorry if i "sound" annoyed....)

[truckdude239]

its no problem man pictures would have diffidently helped

[stan79chevy]

The axle could have been upgraded to the ZR2 version. They are larger and longer than the originals. The whole front axle would have to be replaced but it is a fairly common upgrade.

stan

[scavengerdog]

napa had a pair of zr2 axles in stock at the time... i thought the same thing, but no luck... my current best theory is that it was some obscure aftermarket upgrade of an older axle that was swapped in as a replacement for some as yet unknown reason. the truck was never offroaded as far as i know, just a local daily driver owned by a guy who did not do his own work and wasn't into upgrades of any sort, although he wasn't the first owner. the main axle/differential assembly looked stock. the inner axle ends were the same on each side (female ends) and by the dimensions seemed to be the same as mid 80'a A-body fwd axles (the crew at the local napa store is awesome and helped a lot trying to figure this out), but i didn't have any examples to compare to. the boots listed for the original type axles fit, and that solved the issue for now.

[stan79chevy]

Could be 94-97ish I think the older ones were either both female or both male i dont remember. there is a olds bravada axle that people upgrade to. I dont know much about the bravada axle though you could research it. Could even be full size half ton. Are there any casting numbers?

if i had to guess i'd say its probably a 97. Is it iron or aluminum?

stan

stan