Had a hard time with the second (left side) axle tube due to heavy scratching/gouging on the ball socket. I could not get anything like a consistent feel through the range of motion no matter how much I rotated the flange or varied the gasket thickness. It would be loose on the bottom half of travel and bind on the top half, etc...
The damage to the ball socket had to have been caused by a broken axle boot at some point that was left unattended way too long, road dirt and grit got into the socket and wreaked havoc. That part of the case is hardened enough that I could not correct it with my flat stone so I got a new smooth file and very carefully fixed the deep scratches until it moved smoothly with fairly even feel through the up/down motion of the swing axle.
Here is where the damage was:
Here it is with everything buttoned-up and the boots on. The boots will be a little less than 1/2 full of trans oil once it's filled and installed so you want to orient the split part above the water line, so to speak:
I can't tell you how relieved I am to have this little phase completed.
