A rebuild of #miRustyJeep...

The Axle is in place and I'm cycling to check clearances. I haven't really done this since I scrapped my Rancho shocks and threw my old build plan out the window. The rears were bumpstopped based on math...and I'm happy to report that worked out perfectly. However...my wheel wells were not playing nice with my axle position and uptravel. I think I posted this before...


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My front axle has more uptravel to give, but the rear tires are into the tub. So....What's a guy with Grinders, cutoff wheels, body saws, hammers, and a welder if things go south to do? well....Cut the tub, obviously!

Got the driver's side done today, but the Pass side is going to require a bit more thought to keep the Evap and charcoal canister in place.

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I still haven't driven this with the new gears yet! I need to quit working and start driving...
 
The Axle is in place and I'm cycling to check clearances. I haven't really done this since I scrapped my Rancho shocks and threw my old build plan out the window. The rears were bumpstopped based on math...and I'm happy to report that worked out perfectly. However...my wheel wells were not playing nice with my axle position and uptravel. I think I posted this before...


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My front axle has more uptravel to give, but the rear tires are into the tub. So....What's a guy with Grinders, cutoff wheels, body saws, hammers, and a welder if things go south to do? well....Cut the tub, obviously!

Got the driver's side done today, but the Pass side is going to require a bit more thought to keep the Evap and charcoal canister in place.

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I still haven't driven this with the new gears yet! I need to quit working and start driving...
One of the gifts of having 35’s, usually with lower air pressures and slow speeds it doesn’t amount to more than an occasional rub mark but trimming it and relocating the canister is the solution. I don’t have the canister back there (2000) and I have BFG’s which run smaller, so I live with the rub for now and for the last 22 years. Things will change if I outboard and push the axle back a little.

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On of the gifts of having 35’s, usually with lower air pressures and Slow speeds it doesn’t amount to more than an occasional rub mark but trimming it and relocating the canister is the solution. I don’t have the canister back there (2000) and I have BFG’s which run smaller, so I live with the rub for now and the last 22 years. Things will change if I outboard and push the axle back a little.

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My generals are into the tub, hard, with like an inch of up travel to go when articulating. Full bump, they clear. Hoping I don't have to get into relocating the canister...that's a new project I don't want.
 
Been working on moving my rear suspension through it travel the last couple days. Made a couple changes to get my rear shocks more balanced and create some room for the tires. I'm just waiting for my wife to wake up from a nap to help me bleed brakes and I should be able to test drive with the new gears!

I cut some tub away for tire clearance...

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Took about the same on the driver's side. Trimmed flares to match (my aftermarket flat style...not my factory Rubicon flares) and I can cycle my suspension without fear of cutting a tire. I did have to move my Charcoal Canister. For now, I only changed the bracket to move it back about 7/16 of an inch in the factory location. That bought me enough room for the tire. I may go a bit more extreme in the future, just to make sure its out of harm's way. I still need to prep and paint my new flares, so no pictures, as of yet. Need to get the Jeep mobile first.

In other news...I have a couple more projects. One of my bad habits is scrolling FB marketplace while my wife is watching some murder mystery show on TV. I found a full set of Fox Performance series shocks for a JL that look brand new for 300 bucks. 11" travel for the front and 10" for the rear. These are the same type Shocks that @kmas0n opened up and tuned. These will be a stop gap for me, until I get a new frame and do a full outboard and get the "good" Fox shocks. Figured for 300 bucks, I couldn't go wrong. I will monkey around with some different valving to make them ride decent and it will give me a better grasp of what I'm looking for when its time to talk to a "real tuner."

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The other thing I bought this weekend was some Half Doors, Finally! They are far from good...and not really good from far...but they were CHEAP. Gave the guy 200 bucks for complete doors with uppers. For that money, its worth it to weld in some new metal. Here they are...try not to cringe too bad.

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After I took these pictures, I knocked the paint bubbles off and the steel underneath is solid. LIttle bit of spot blasting, some epoxy primer and filler, and they'll be good as new. I will probably need a couple new hinges for them though...maybe just the pins.

Now...the scary part.
This is the "good" one...Passenger side

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And the one where I'll need to actually cut and weld in new material...

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I don't know WHY they designed these doors this way. That lip being folded over like that to hold the two halves together caused SO much rot...I get that its easy...but dang man. When I put it back together, I'll seam seal the bottom edge and drill a few more drain holes in to provide the water a means of egress.

I'll post another thread too, but my softop is brown/tan and my interior is Agate. I'd be willing to trade interior panels and uppers with someone...
 
I don't know WHY they designed these doors this way. That lip being folded over like that to hold the two halves together caused SO much rot...I get that its easy...but dang man.

Industry standard for automotive doors for 100 years so at least it's not a Jeep problem. Hinges are sort of pricey. Look forward to seeing what you can do!
 
As I posted before, I regeared my Axles to 4:88 recently. Well, I finally got around to going for a test drive last Monday. It did not go as planned.

I left from the house, and things were hunky dory. No weird noises and everything was running smooth. I live in town, so low speeds for a little bit. Got out to a main road, bumped up to 45, then 55 (I think... My speedo is way off). Still good... Maybe a little bit of whine, but they are used so I kinda expected a little while. Then about 2.5 miles from home ..BANG. I stopped immediately and looked around. No fluid leaking and both driveshafts were in place.

Did a u turn and limped back home. Hit up a dirt lot on the way to test 4WD and no go. She don't want to move forward or back. Got home and parked in disgust.

Tuesday I tore it apart and found a whole lot of damage. The bang was my chromoly front axle shaft. It broke at the splines of the outer stub. When that broke, it unloaded the unit bearing, so that is shot too.
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So... That explained the noise, but not why it wouldn't drive in 4x4. So, deeper I went. The passenger wheel won't rotate with the diff locked. The drive shaft won't rotate either. Put the T case in neutral, driveshaft still doesn't want to rotate. I unbolted the driveshaft and a bit of good news... The unobtainium 241OR TCase is good. Driveshaft rotates now that it's not connected to the axle. But now, I'm really scratching my head... Why won't the pinion spin? I drained the oil out of my front diff and pulled the passenger axle. Got the ring and carrier out. No obstructions, and gears look great. No glitter in the oil, bearings are free.

Pinion still won't spin. I pulled the nut, yoke and seal.

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The outer pinion bearing had a complete, catastrophic failure. That seized the pinion, which stopped the ring gear. Since I was moving at the time, the axle broke, which allowed the differential to free up and not bring my tires skidding to a stop... Or chew the teeth of the ring.
 
So...I beat the hell out of the pinion under the Jeep. No dice. Used heat... No dice.

I spent Wednesday night getting the pinion out of the housing, roller by roller. Had to use a belt grinder to notch the inner race to make room.
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The bearings came out in all different shapes... But none of them were round anymore

Finally got the pinion out. I had thought to reuse the gearset. The ring looks perfect, as does the pinion gear. I just had to get this pesky inner race off

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What a chore. The race friction welded itself to the pinion. I maxed out my 20t HF press pushing on it, got it hot enough to turn it brown, cut it with a wheel then chisel to try and split it... Nothing was working.

I finally did get it, after hours of pounding on it with a 3 lb sledge and cold chisel. When it let loose... Sounded like a gunshot!

Here is the pinion shaft


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A new gearset in on order...


Something I firmly believe it's that education is expensive. You can pay for someone to teach you, or let experience do it. Either way is going to cost you. This is a new skill for me, yet I can't figure out what went wrong, aside from one thing.

When I did "final" assembly of the pinion setup, I installed the wrong baffle between the seal and outer bearing. I caught it, because my rotational torque went way higher than it should have (from 20 in-lbs to 75 or something). Tore it back apart, found the error and corrected it. All I can come up with is that I damaged the cage on the bearing and that's what caused it to hang up and seize. Or... The extra load from the wrong baffle flat spotted the bearing... But I'd have felt that I think. The final theory is that I simply got a bad bearing. Its possible. SKF bearings used to be good, but this one was marked, "China" so who knows.

Anyway I'm still glad I tackled this project myself. It's not voodoo and black magic, just time consuming and tedious. You need to be meticulous and pay attention to detail.
 
Huh. That's quite a story, Mike.

At least the output shaft went without taking out the entire transfer case - although my guess is that it's designed to fail that way.
 
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Huh. That's quite a story, Mike.

At least the output shaft went without taking out the entire transfer case - although my guess is that it's designed to fail that way.
It's been an interesting week...I feel a little like a crime scene investigator, looking for clues. The TCase is fine (thank goodness) it was my stub shaft on the driver's side front axle that broke.
 
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What an adventure you have had! That is a crazy (but impressive) amount of damage from that seized bearing. A LARGE amount of heat was generated to friction weld the race to the shaft. I guess it's good that only the shafts exploded and no damage to the t-case.
 
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What an adventure you have had! That is a crazy (but impressive) amount of damage from that seized bearing. A LARGE amount of heat was generated to friction weld the race to the shaft. I guess it's good that only the shafts exploded and no damage to the t-case.
Galling (like shown above) is a little bit different than a standard friction weld...but yes...it got quite hot!
 
Dang! Well, glad it didn't do further damage. This is what my rear outer pinion bearing looked like, and only after 5K miles from the re-gear.
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Luckily for me, it gave me a warning by making a lovely howling noise.
 
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That is a crazy story Mike. My heart goes out to you after all the re-gear work. I would have bet a good chunk of money that bearing would make noise before suddenly seizing under load. It’s unfortunate you lost the shaft. Surprised and fortunate the TCase is solid. What a pain to get the pinion bearing removed. That galling is amazing.
 
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That is a crazy story Mike. My heart goes out to you after all the re-gear work. I would have bet a good chunk of money that bearing would make noise before suddenly seizing under load. It’s unfortunate you lost the shaft. Surprised and fortunate the TCase is solid. What a pain to get the pinion bearing removed. That galling is amazing.
Fortunately, I can buy a new stub shaft, and all the other bits and bobs. Nothing has been backordered, so pretty lucky there. I'll thrash this week to get it together to make my scheduled wheeling trip the weekend before memorial day. I may be finishing my gear break-in by driving to badlands!