Stock A/T ‘14 SS keeps breaking axles

[Jrowland95]

So my car is a 2014 automatic SS. Only thing on the car is long tubes, CAI and a tune. It’s got 173,000 miles and I’ve owned it since 30,000. It’s my daily that I drive to work and home every day, I don’t race I never really get on it. Car has seen maybe 3 or 4 burnouts which were all when I first got it. Original axles held on till about 145k and my first one broke. Since then I’ve broken 4 all on the driver side. I’m not sure what I need to be looking for to pinpoint the problem. I will say that I’m changing the trans next weekend because of slipping and crazy hard 2-1 downshifts and fairly hard 1-2, 2-3 upshifts. Any advice of what to check first as far as other worn parts that may be causing the issue on the driver side? Clearances? angles? Anything? Thanks in advance.

[Aqua Blue RS/SS]

Where are you getting your axles from?It’s pretty well known that GM axles are far superior to any of the “parts store” brands.

[Blue 13]

I’m still running stock axles. Something is definitely wrong.

[Jrowland95]

First 2 or 3 I got from Oriley the one I broke last night came from the Chevy dealership.

[Jrowland95]

Originally Posted by Aqua Blue RS/SS

Where are you getting your axles from?It’s pretty well known that GM axles are far superior to any of the “parts store” brands.

First 2 or 3 I got from Oriley the one I broke last night came from the Chevy dealership.

[FasNuf]

Are you lowered?

[TheBrightSide]

Originally Posted by FasNuf

Are you lowered?

This. I was gonna say, wasn’t there like research and like anecdotal evidence showing that lowered 5th gen Camaro’s, typically have MORE stress on the axles? I remember someone saying the stress generated more heat, and then it would also boil the axle grease and potentially wear out the axle boots earlier, etc…

I’ve been very hesitant to lower my Camaro V8 bc of this very reason. I was debating on doing 0.5” drop lowering springs all around, but might even go against that for the time being. It’s not like the 20” wheel setups with at least 40-45 sidewalls, or even 35 for super wide tires, have a “monster truck” wheel/tire gap.

[Moto-Mojo]

I remember in the 1980's when our driveline shops were getting into rebuilding Rzeppa style (6-ball) FWD (later RWD like Camaro) axles. We all had good sources for parts like Dana, Neapco and Rockford. Within just a few years, nearly all the quality parts gave way to absolute crap and shoddy rebuild methods. ALL respectable vendors like Dana left the FWD parts business. What was left is what you'll find at O'Reilly, et al.

[Jrowland95]

Originally Posted by FasNuf

Are you lowered?

I am not. Full stock suspension, wheel/tire size. Literally the only non stock things on the car is the cold air, headers and cat back. Aside from that it’s exactly as it was when it left the dealership in 2014. I was under there yesterday and there’s definitely tlc that’s needed on the rear suspension (upper bushings in the rear spindles, and the rear sway bar is doing next to nothing right now because the bushings on the mounts are so down down to the pint that it’s just a cosmetic part at this point lol) I will fix these but I’m being told that while not ideal neither issue should be causing an axle to break every 10-12k miles. So unless I can pinpoint it my next series of projects will be to start replacing the rear suspension starting from the most visually worn stuff and work my way to the best looking parts. I’ll add too that there’s no concerning noises coming from the rear any time. No noises during light or heavy acceleration, nothing when cornering hard or soft, nothing when hitting bumps in the city. The only time I get any kind of noises are when the axle has been on the car for 7 or 8k miles and it winds up so loose that there’s a ton of play so when I stop for traffic and have to hit the gas it will pop once it gets power and eats up all the slack and kinda slam forward but with the new axle all of that goes away.

Sorry for the novel but I’m trying to give as much info as possible because I’d really like to get this taken care of I’m to the point I have 2 lifetime warranty axles so one is always in the care and the other is in the trunk with a jack and an impact so I can change it out wherever I’m at when it decides to go lmao. I’ll post a picture of the axle we just took out when I get home and I’ll post a pic of the sway bar links.

[Jrowland95]

I also meant to mention, there is a whine coming from the rear half of the car but I suspect this to be from the drive shaft center support bearing. I’ll have the car on a lift this weekend and while it’s up and the trans is out I plan to replace the bearing. Reason I think it’s the bearing is when we put the trans that’s in the car now (roughly a month ago) the bearing was pretty worn to the point the dust covers both were falling off and a bunch of road trash was on it. I would have replaced it then but it was 9:00 on a Sunday night and I needed the car for work the next day but this coming Sunday it’ll be fixed and If that doesn’t fix the whine I’ll have to start looking deeper into the rear end.

[CamaroCracka]

Are all the axles breaking in the same place, e.g. inner joint, outer joint, axle? If it's always the same part, that could help you find the problem.

Under simple stuff first, you are tightening the shaft nut to 199lbft. and staking it?

CV shafts like to be as level as possible, perhaps a slight elevation to the diff. To the degree a worn rear suspension allows the shaft angles to get out of spec, it can be a problem.

I once bought a Chinese cv shaft and snapped it within a couple weeks. There was hardly any grease in the joint. I still have the lifetime replacement on the shelf while I put DSS rebuilds on the truck that are still there over 15 years later. Back then those DSS rebuilt shafts were less than $150 ea.

While you are under there, check your Guibo joints on the end of the drive shaft. In the 4x4 world, CV shafts break a lot when the drive line can wind up and then deliver a sudden shock. Front lockers can be used to increase reliability because one wheel won't spin independently and then suddenly find traction on something snapping a shaft.

Take a look at the diff bushings too, just to make sure they are not allowing the diff to rotate.

If by changing the trans, you mean rebuilding it, make sure to use the full carbon blockers and synchros from Tremec. If you are just putting a different trans it, never mind.

[Jrowland95]

Yes every axle has broken at the same spot. It’s the inner joint the metal inside the boot (the metal ring that I assume the balls sit in, breaks almost exactly In half top to bottom as it sits in the car) and the metal housing (between the boot and the diff) is always blue from heat and you can see where each ball has pushed out, it’ll typically have 2-3 spots where it’s almost perfect spheres bent out from the inside.

Not gonna lie I haven’t tightened it to 199 but I do stake it.

My next plan is to look into better axles for sure. Right now it’s just whatever axle orielys has in stock.

I’ll check that out this weekend. I put the axle in Sunday and it was pretty tight and felt good for about a day and I can already feel it loosing up, roughly 80miles or so since it was installed.

I plan to run a GoPro under the car tomorrow on the way to work to see what’s happening under there.

And the Trans I got a used unit from LKQ a month ago and it’s doing the same thing my original was doing a few months before it blew so I have the warranty unit in my garage and will be throwing it in this weekend.

[CamaroCracka]

GoPro is a good idea. Something is up with the inner, but odd that the other inner is unaffected.

[fz4k98]

With the damage you mention and that it is repetitive, it sounds like the inner joint is under stress most likely from an alignment issue. I would check the alignment of the diff to outer axle hub. The other item is possibly length of the axle. If its too long it would stress the joint.
Is there cross car play on the axle?