dyasko

The seal housing is the part that the copper line is attached to and it’s supposed to be static. There are 2 o rings on the inside journal and the carrier rotates independently. If it does spin, the copper line moves with it and contacts the ring gear which is what happened.

My battle with the ARB in the 8.8 continues… Spun the seal housing again and broke the copper line. Thought for sure I finally had a enough carrier preload when I set this up last November. Not sure if I try to slam it in even tighter or what? 14 bolts have a “seal housing bracket” that bolts to the cap and prevents it from spinning, wonder if I could make one for this application.

Lucky me!

Was up in big bear last month. Plan was get up there late, camp and run John Bull and holcomb creek the next day. Decided to take gold mountain on the way out and snapped a main leaf on the last 100 yards of gold mountain. Talk about the last place I thought I'd have a problem! It broke right where the stock clamp bolt ran across. There is a indent in this spot front and back on my other springs and even on the junkyard pack I bought after this. It had obviously cracked prior to this trip since there was rust about halfway through it when I inspected it the next day. Luckily because of how it wedged itself into the frame, we were able to limp it to a flat spot and camp the night. Got it somewhat decent with a ratchet strap, hi-lift and bottle jack and drove out the next day. Now I'm glad I pay the extra $40 for AAA 300 mile towing..

I've been slammed with work for the last couple months. I finally had time last week to get the new axle swapped in. I had the gears all done in June, and everything else was mostly done by July so it's just been sitting in the garage for months. Goodbye Dana 30. The tie rod looks tiny compared to the new stuff... Fitted into place The goal was to stretch 1.5" forward to get larger tires centered in the wheel well. Ran into problems right away with track bar mount location. I would also have problems with the drag link interfering with the tie rod at full compression. Ended up only stretching about 3/4", but still had issues with the track bar and the truss. Decided to redo the track bar mount. Plated the underside with 3/16" to better distribute the force Repurposed the bottom half of my RE bracket, but trimmed about 3/4" off the top of it for less of a drop. Used a yardstick to get it lined up decently. I wanted to reuse the RE track bar, knowing I'd just need to cut it down about 5 inches and redo the bushing on the end for the wider 2" bracket on the TNT truss. Made new bushing out of 2"x0.25" wall DOM and some bushings I had lying around. It was a little interesting getting this to a tight slip fit using only a portaband and hand files. It became obvious that the bends in the RE track bar just weren't going to work for me. Luckily I had 30" of 1.5" tube leftover from the Ruffstuff steering kit I used. It didn't need as much bend as the RE since the axle side mount is higher than stock. Just a enough to keep it from hitting the pumpkin and oil pan at full compression. Crappy picture but it got it to clear the pan and pumpkin perfectly with just a little room to spare for bump stop compression. Made some nifty spring retainers to fit under the pucks I'm bad at remembering to take pictures but here's everything done and in place after the first couple test drives. Steering is solid. I was able to get the track bar and drag link with 0.5 deg of each other and no bump steer. Most importantly though no weird noises or stuff falling off in the first 30 mi! Made sure to drive like I'm breaking in new gears, but it doesn't really seem like it'd matter much on front gears. I locked the hubs so it'd spin at least...I think I need to go wheel to really break em in right

Hmm..definitely agree on the cage but I’ll have to invest in a tube bender before that. Do you think plating the frame behind the cab or tying the bumpers into the bottom of the frame instead of just the sides would help at all?

Yeah for $35 I figured I’d make my life a little easier. I’ve had a hell of a time trying to hammer shims in before with a lot of preload. Question for you guys: have you ever had problems with excessive flex in the windshield frame? I’ve had a windshield pop the seal before and I exploded my windshield from the unibody flexing on the trail today. I need to figure out which areas I can plate to gain more stiffness. I’ve already done from the front bumper to the back of the cab. Thinking I might need to reinforce where the LCA brackets used to be...

There’s a spec for how much you can spread your specific axle. I know it’s listed in the ARB manuals. It’s not more than a few thousandths and you measure it with your dial gauge. I haven’t done it yet but I’ve read it doesn’t take much

I'll be installing an ARB with the new gears so adequate preload will be important for proper setup. Rather than mess with driving shims, I decided to build a cheap case spreader. Bought a 3/4" grade 8 threaded rod from McMaster and some 1/2" bar stock from my metal supplier and made a simple case spreader for about $40. I didn't take a picture with the rod welded in the holes. We'll see how this thing works when it's time to do gears.

In January, I found a HP D44 for sale locally so I snatched it up. Did a lot of research and slowly started ordering parts and working. Parts availability has definitely been affected by covid and I've had a hard time finding certain things like gears, bearings, and shafts. Axle came out of a 1977.5-79 F150 Supercab. It was ~67" wide from WMS. Because it was from a supercab, it was set up for leaf springs and has 3" diameter x 1/2" wall tubes. First order of business was to remove the caliper spindles, shafts, and caliper brackets. Then I had to grind off the spring perches. My plan was to narrow it to 80s wagoneer width so that I can use waggy inner shafts. I would have to cut about 2.5" off each side. 2.63" off the long side and 2.82" off the short side, to be exact. Before I could cut the shafts, I had to grind off the inner C's. I carefully ground the weld out of both inner C's until I could see a tiny crack all the way around the circumference of the tube. Then I beat them both off with a 4lb sledge. One came off fairly easily, the other took some convincing. I measured and roughly marked the amount I needed to cut off each side. I used a hose clamp to mark the exact measurement and guide the cut with a portable bandsaw. Tubes cut down Before starting all of this, I had built an electrolysis bucket to remove rust from all the old parts. I would run each part for about 12 hours in the bucket and then lightly scrub with steel wool for a factory finish. I then painted some of the parts. Now with the tubes cut down, it was time to hammer the inner C's back on with the correct pinion angle and caster. I ended up with 12.5° of pinion angle and ~6.2° of caster. I set the depth of C's on the tube just based on where the rust marks were from before. With both the C's back on, I reinstalled the knuckles and spindles to test fit some shafts and check the camber. Camber was coming out at about 1.5° on both sides. The C's are a press fit so camber isn't adjustable. Some further research found that 1.5° of positive camber is spec on these old trucks. I might use eccentric ball joint compression sleeves to correct it later. Had a friend turn the axle on stands while I welded the C's back on. Did a root and cap just to be safe.

I've wanted to go to KOH for years but I've never been able to line it up. Got lucky and I had 4 days off this year, so I spent the second half of the week in the desert with a few buddies. We had a great time exploring the course, watching the race, and of course did some wheeling.

Been a while and a lot has happened so I'll try to write some posts to document it all. Had a 10 day covid quarantine over Christmas, so I used that time to work on some projects I had prepped. First on the list were the TNT radius arms I'd been sitting on for a few months. My plan was to weld on unibody stiffeners for the mid-section at the same time to reduce frame flex and give the belly pan a more solid mounting surface. I started my quarantine by prepping the unibody and welding on the stiffeners. I bought a pair of TMR fab stiffeners because that's what was available. The fitment was okay. I definitely had to modify them in some areas. The biggest mistake I made was not removing the upper control arms beforehand because I later realized the oval hole used to remove the bolt was not cut in these stiffeners. So don't make the same mistake I did. If you haven't ever welded stiffeners, 3 things: 1. There's no way to do it comfortably without a lift 2. Make sure you prep really well. Grind down until you see shiny metal. A dull gray is still the factory galvanic coating which will give you porosity and make your life hell. Spray down with brake cleaner after grinding and before welding also. 3. Only weld ~2 inches at a time with your welder set for a notch below the thickness of the stiffener. Concentrate the puddle on the stiffener Got the stiffeners mostly welded up and drilled the frame per TNT's directions. Everything lined up pretty easily. Cutting the LCA brackets off took some time. Got as much as I could with the plasma cutter, but I was real wary of getting too close to the frame. Finished it off with an angle grinder. I've been running on the TNT system for 5 months now with no issues.

Thank you. Agreed on the color Shortly after I lost my J, I ran into a guy with an XJ that was missing the EEP and I offered him $20 for his J, but he declined, so it's been an EEP ever since

A winch had been on the list for a while too, but buying a winch and a bumper at the same time ain't cheap. I didn't like how far all the bumpers on the market stuck out from the grille so I decided to make a recessed bumper to fit the winch under the radiator. I saw boostwerks and reson46's designs which both used a warn m8000 winch. I wanted to use one of warn's new evo xr 10,000lb winches, which is slightly bigger. I knew I was going to have to cut out the stock crossmember, which wasn't a big deal because I knew the new bumper would increase the strength in this area anyway. So I cut that out and then cut a plate to run from rail to rail. I cut the mounts so that this plate would stick out about 1" further than the grille. I wanted it to be as flush as possible but I think it looks better with a slight protrusion, rather than being totally flush. I clocked the clutch housing 180 degrees so that I could mount the winch feet forward like an ARB bumper. I also removed the control pack and mounted this remotely in the engine bay. This is the plate that I started with that would take the place of the crossmember. It is drilled for the standard winch mounting pattern, drilled and tapped for the fairlead bolts, and cut for the clutch lever (except I cut this on the wrong side at first ) Cut out some steel just bigger than the fairlead opening so rope wouldn't touch the steel. Thank god for plasma cutters. Then I found an old cardboard box, cut out some pieces and started going by the seat of my pants. Didn't really take any pictures of this part, but I ended up here: I had to offset the winch a little to the left to clear the steering box. It was real tight in there. I also fixed my mistake on the clutch hole and cleaned things up a little... Killed my old cheapo duralast battery spooling my line. Even the alternator on the Jeep couldn't keep up. Decided to upgrade to a yellow top. Mounted the controller in the engine bay. Bolted it to the passenger side shock, not sure if I like that but it works for now. Used a relocation kit from Vice Design, which was just an extended wiring harness. This controller can do wireless or wired, so I don't have to pop the hood ever.

Thanks! I know I've seen a few guys run tube off the rear bumper. I think I'll do something similar to that soon. I've gotten lucky so far