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1,000 Year Old Architecture

Build Logs by Contributor

Building my axles

Well, I'm starting this late, but I wanted to document my experience building and installing my new Data 44 axles for my Jeep TJ.
The first weekend in January, I went out to Aaron's and we picked up the front axle from his brother's house and brought it back to Aaron's Garage.
He had me start grinding the leaf spring attachments off the axle.  Used the cut-off wheel on the air tool and grinding wheels on the electric grinder.  Got almost everything off during the first day.
 

Day 2

Two weeks later, I was back at Aaron's.

I finished cutting everything off the axle and ground down all of the leftover bits.

He then removed the outer knuckles and had me cut off the inner knuckles using a chop saw.  I then cleaned the inners up using the 2-hp tool launcher.  We talked about axle shaft lengths and called it quits.

Part 3

I received my front 4.88 Precision Gears this week!  Whoo hoo!
We put my TJ up on the lift and calculated the axle shaft lengths and found a way to use stock replacement shafts.With nothing much else to do, I help Aaron clean the garage for a while and some other misc stuff.

Part 4

Monday, 25-Jan:  Ordered my 1 needed axle shaft from JBG as well as two Chrome Molly 760X U-Joints and my pinion seals for front and rear.
Tuesday, 26-Jan:  Got my Yukon rear 4.88 gears!  Double whoo-hoo!
Found a junk Dana 30 and 35 axle for parts, just need to go pick it up tomorrow in Ft. Collins 
David
 

Part 5

I'm going to be posting videos!
30-Jan: Went to three different junk yards (I'm sorry, "Cash for Clunkers Processing Centers") looking for my Dodge 4wd front axle and manually locking hubs.  Finally found them at Pull-n-Save (aka Pull-n-Pray).  Took about an hour or so to get it all unhooked and find the hubs and remove them too.
We also found a stock Dana 44 from a Comanche, the world's best $38 truck-bed toolbox, $5 mountable tow hook pairs and other various and sundry items.  At one point we had a crew of FIVE.
Meanwhile, back at Aaron's, I managed to completely disassemble the front axle and clean all of the parts then store them for future use.  After this I will be carrying 1-2 spare Dana 44 hubs in case anybody breaks one on the trail.
Also, Aaron kindly showed me how to do a trail swap of a u-joint.  The video is here.
'Till next week!
David