New Owners: Insure Axle Bolt Upgrade has been Performed!

[nota4re]

It seems that recently there are several new owners here. There is PLENTY of information on the axle bolt upgrade that you can search and read up on and I don't want to repeat that here. The "news" is that it is VERY important that ALL GTs - regardless if they are garage queens, track machines, or anything in between, need to have the axle bolt upgrade performed. The consequence of NOT doing the upgrade is that you risk that the bolts break and the halfshaft will pull out of the transaxle. You will dump a lot of transaxle fluid and the other end of the halfshaft, as it is still connected to the hub/wheel, will flop around - potentially violently until the car comes to a stop. Scaring you? Good, that's my intention. GET THE UPGRADE DONE.

We have a ~6,000 mi late VIN GT in the shop for service/upgrades. New-ish owner had no confirmation from seller regarding axle bolts. Inspecting the 6 OUTER bolts that connect the halfshaft to the transaxle flange, we can see only a single torque confirmation paint line on each bolt and all are aligned. The paint marks are white on this car but we've seen red, orange, blue, etc. marks on other cars. We decided that we needed to disassemble the coupler to check to see if the inner bolt/washer upgrade had been performed. We've only done the passenger side so far. Inside the flange, we found the head of one OEM Allen bolt sheared off and bouncing around inside the coupler. Checking the remaining bolt, the head was hanging on by half a thread and came off in our hand. Yikes! This was an accident waiting to happen... and it was going to happen soon.

How can you know if the axle bolt upgrade has been performed?

1. You can ask your Ford dealer to print an Oasis report based on your VIN. If a Ford dealer performed the update it will be documented on the Oasis report. Or,
2. Visually inspect the 6 outer bolts at the flange that joins the halfshaft to the transaxle.
2a. If these outer bolts are black 12-point bolts, then your car has the Accufab upgrade kit installed and you are good.
2b. If your car has OEM silver Allen bolts, carefully inspect the paint line on each bolt to see if the lines are aligned. You want to see evidence that those bolts have been removed/replaced. If you cannot find any evidence that the bolts have been replaced, you need to dis-assemble the coupler to look inside.
3. Inside, you will see two bolts. If these bolts are black Allen head bolts, you need to perform the upgrade. However, if the bolts are hex-head and recessed into a spacer, then your car has the upgrade.

Note1: The outer bolts are Torque to Yield (TTY) bolts and technically should be discarded and new bolts should be used to re-assemble the flange. The kit will come with new outer bolts but if you discovered the update has already been perfomed by looking inside, you should probably order new outer bolts for re-assembly.

Note2: Many cars will have transaxle fluid inside the coupler. This should not happen but is relatively common. There is a GT-specific Technical Service Bulletin 06-23-08 that should be performed prior to re-assembly.

DON'T make the mistake of thinking that you baby the car and it may not need this upgrade. ALL 2005-2006 GT's should have this upgrade performed as ALL are susceptible to the bolt failure.

 

[nota4re]

 

[THamonGT]

Great post, thank You! New owners, Don’t take the chance have your new acquired checked,

 

[Nafod]

Yikes. That would ruin a great day of driving the GT.

 

[soroush]

good reminder

 

[Tiago]

Great post, thanks for the info. Will look into this as soon as my car shows up......

 

[twobjshelbys]

Can you clarify the Ford "recall". I recall there were two passes by Ford at the parts. Rich assures me that based on the DATE my work was performed I have the second (good) version.

 

[nota4re]

Recall is a dirty word. Ford never issued a recall but, indeed, two passes were made at correcting the problem. In Ford's initial investigation of the problem, they determined that the spacer thickness was the culprit. In response to some angry GT owners, they rolled out a fix comprised of a thicker (black as opposed to silver color) spacer that also had a higher Rockwell hardness rating. Additionally, they made a production line change at that point so that all cars in the line (and subsequent) would have this thicker, harder, washer. This was a little bit of a misstep insofar that; 1) the "kit" did not include the (6) outer flange bolts despite Ford's own process instructed them to be discarded after one use, and; 2) the thicker spacer didn't solve the failure rate.

Being a late 2006 model, the car above HAS the thicker spacer. What you can't see from the picture is that the spacer is cupped. Look closely at the bolt head marks on the washer - especially the ones on the right hole. When the spacer deforms (cups) the load on the bolt head is not evenly distributed - you can easily see places where the bolt head is not touching the spacer (lack of a witness mark).

The good news is that within another 60 days or so, Ford figured out the problem which was 1) hydrogen embrittlement of the attachment bolts incurred while treating them, and; 2) the cupping of the spacer that puts uneven loads on these fasteners.

There are two "good" kits made available - one from Ford and one from Accufab.

Ford's Kit: Uses a VERY thick spacer with recessed hole for the bolt heads. (The depth of the transaxle flange dictates that the spacer + bolt head can only be so thick.) New flange to Axle bolts (2 per side) are used and have hex heads and which appear to be made by ARP. Additionally, the kit includes the outer 6 OEM Allen bolts to assemble the flange to the halfshaft. The kit includes all the hardware to do both sides. The challenge is that the outer bolts are the same as the OEM bolts so it is hard to visually detect if the kit has been installed.

Accufab's Kit: Uses a thick spacer and ARP bolts for the attachment to the axle shaft. The kit also includes black 12-pt ARP outer bolts to re-assemble the flange. The nice part about the ARP kit is that by examining the outer flange bolts, it's easy to determine that the upgrade has been performed.

 

[Specracer]

I feel like its 2008 all over again.......

A good reminder, as I forget that new people may have no idea. Mine failed while driving, no fun.

 

[2112]

Are the replacement bolts considered a lifetime fix?

 

[Specracer]

^^^ Yes

 

[junior]

Is it necessary to re-torque the upgraded kit bolts at specific maintenance intervals?

 

[twobjshelbys]

Is it necessary to re-torque the upgraded kit bolts at specific maintenance intervals?

If the outer bolts are torque to yield then that's it

 

[nota4re]

Of course Tony is correct. Torque once and forget!

 

[twobjshelbys]

Of course Tony is correct. Torque once and forget!

The reason you don't re-torque is that if you loosen to re-torque a single use bolt then you have to replace it

I was looking through the service manual for R&R of stuff and found there are a number of torque-to-yield bolts in places where you might not expect them. If I recall the exhaust bolts are one example (makes sense since the heat expands them). My point is that before R&R any major component get the service book section for that part and look for any single-use parts. The CD is invaluable!

 

[Rickmustang]

Guys, I decided to take a look at my car and see if the bolts were upgraded from previous owners. The bolts are OEM silver allen bolts, but there is not any paint marks on any of them. I see the paint marks on the mating parts, but not the bolts. In your opinion, do you think the upgrade has been done? Pictures attached, hopefully. Thanks.

 

[Rickmustang]

I could not figure out how to post pictures....

 

[Xcentric]

I could not figure out how to post pictures....

Click the "Insert Image" icon.

To answer your question, original bolts have witness marks.

 

[Rickmustang]

Unfortunately when I click Insert Image, a blank text box comes up, with an INSERT button, but when I click it the text box fills in with http//. I cannot get the DROP IMAGE box to appear. I tried dragging and dropping the image into the text box, but it only opens the image.

 

[nota4re]

If you can see a paint mark on the mating parts but not on the bolts themselves, then I would think that the update has been done. Insofar that the OEM Ford kit was used it is likely that a dealership performed the upgrade. Ask your local dealership to run an oasis report for you and it should show up.