How to tell
 

How do you tell if your axes are bent? Also can a ring and pinion problem also cause the same problems?

What's the problem that you are having?

Well i've always had gear whine since my install a year ago. I just got sick of it today got a new set of gears and install kit. But anyways back to the story I had a pinion seal leak tightened the nut and fixed that it's got a leak again sounds like some nasty backlash in there. And vibration, I can almost hear every tooth of the ring hit the pinion going 5-10mph. But I was also wondering if I had a possible bent axle.

A good way to tell is if you think your axles aren't too bad, pull them and paint a straight line on the splines. Do a couple of 1/4 mile passes and then pull the axles again. If the line isn't straight anymore, you're twisting axles and need to get stronger pieces.

ehh theres gotta be a easier way.

to tell if they're bent... you'll get a low grinding noise of the axle bearings against the axles and it'll load your carrier in a weird way possibly causing leaks (like your pinion seal).

There's not a lot of easy ways to tell. Jack up the car, remove the rear brakes and brake caliper mounting bracket. Spin the wheels if you notice oscillation you've probably got a more serious issue like axle bent or housing bent, etc...

If you can spin the wheels and not get any grinding etc...but when you're going slow and not braking you can hear a squeal or grind then you've probably got bad bearings. It's unusual to "bend" an axle on solid axle cars. It's more common to frag the bearings and have that cause axle damage.

True i'm thinking its the bearings they are 93k on them. But I do know that my backlash is out of whack so I got a brand new set of gears and gonna overhaul the damn thing next week. the pinion seal is most likely fudged up because of the gear install a year ago.I just been hearing about people bending axles lately and I got a little freaked

Maybe you're confusing bending w/ twisting, which is very possilbe w/ stock axles. The method I said to use is for twisting. As for actually bending, I don't think that's the case but twisting is very possible.

We'll see I hope AM can get my new gears in by next week. I need to get Emilie to get on it.

Update my rear is leaking like a freaking sive...lol and the harmonic vibration is ridiculous.