MJ Dana 44 Help

[spence]

Well, the answer is........NO crush sleeve! And, interestingly enough, you CAN crush preload shims (or at least deform them BADLY). I haven't mic'd them yet, but I'm willing to bet that the part of the shim around the inner hole is thinner than the rest of the shim. That portion of the shims is actually curled, so badly, in fact, that I had trouble getting the one which rides against the step on the shaft off. I had to quit, as it was getting to dark to see, so I'll have to wait until tomorrow to mic the shims and inspect the bearing at the yoke end. The pinion end bearing appears to be alright. I hope that the rest of you do-it-yourselfers take note of this and learn from my mistake. Don't act just based on what you've read! The Dana 44 yoke torque specs that I had stated 200-220 ft/lbs.. WRONG! If I had just taken the time to post this question here before going off half-cocked, I would have known just from the varied responses that I got that I'd better get a more definitive answer. If anyone here could give me the correct procedure, I'd be much obliged. Thanx, Spence.

P.S. Hornbrod, do you know how tough it is being a 'Bama fan down here in Ft. Myers with all these folks and their loser team. Hell, a real gator could play better football!

[HOrnbrod]

P.S. Hornbrod, do you know how tough it is being a 'Bama fan down here in Ft. Myers with all these folks and their loser team. Hell, a real gator could play better football!

 

At least you're not in Gainesville. :D I think the Gators will be better this year now that their media darling T-bone is gone and they won't be depending on him for everything. :yes:

[spence]

Better, but not better ENOUGH! ROLL TIDE!

[Pete M]

Anyone know where I can get a pair of 2" shorter front coils? Rollpan? Airdam? Thanx, Spence.

 

 

might want to start a new thread for all that. :thumbsup:

[spence]

Hint taken, Pete! As for the 44, I looked at it closely today. I mic'd the shims carefully, inside and out, and found that they were still .010", .025" and .025" respectively, definately not as bad as they looked (felt) in the dusk last evening. After studying how the whole pinion assembly worked and stayed in position, I decided to reassemble it. Common (?) sense told me that it wouldn't take anywhere near the number of ft/lbs. I had tried initially. What I needed to do was to take up the end play, seat the bearings without distorting them (keeping in mind that when everything heated up and expanded, things would get even tighter) and not pay any particular attention to the amount of torque was being exerted on the pinion nut. As I see it, the purpose of the pinion nut in this assembly is primarily to hold things together as you have set them. So, with that in mind, I reassembled the pinion assembly in the housing (lubed thoroughly with Mobil 1...I love that stuff!), tapped on the yoke far enough that I could slide the thrust washer on and get the pinion nut started, and then carefully took up the slack, holding the yoke with a large wrench and drawing down on the pinion nut until everything felt snug and all of the end play was gone. As the original design of the pinion nut looked to be a "one timer" self-locking style, I took it back off at this point and applied some red Loctite to the shaft threads, and reseated the pinion nut as before. Felt really good (I've done a lot of race bikes in my day, so I know what both good AND bad feel like!), so I popped the ring and differential back in, tightened the cap bolts to 90 ft/lbs., squirted Mobil 1 all over everything and gave it a spin. OOOH, LA-LA! Felt so nice and smooth that I slid in the axles and spun it again. Still OOH, LA-LA! This baby's goin' back in de truck!!! Now, to find a 1" shorter driveshaft! Thanx, Spence.

[jpdocdave]

wow

 

the pinion nut needs to be torqued to spec on a shimmed axel. if the bearings are being overloaded before the torque is reached, you need to add preload shims. the preload on the pinion needs to be in spec, when the nut is torqued to spec. if you aren't torquing the nut to spec, chances are you will have a failure.

 

simply torquing the nut till the play is gone is just plane bad advice.

[cracker]

I mic'd the shims carefully, inside and out, and found that they were still .010", .025" and .025" respectively, definately not as bad as they looked (felt) in the dusk last evening.

 

I too have seen them look like hammered hell when they are pulled out for some reason. Some of the ones I pull apart look normal and others look like they went through a meat grinder.

 

They really can't get squashed. It is the bearing that will take the hit before those shims would when tightening.

 

I am glad you got it going.

[spence]

Hey, jpdocdave! Thank you for the timely reality check! I've already had one hand grenade and, as I said before, I'd really like this axle to last. I'm still having trouble understanding just what caused the pinion bearings to overload simply by removing and re-installing the yoke. I had never taken the pinion assembly out, as everything felt so good. The gear lash was minimal, the wear pattern on the gearset was perfectly centered and even, top to bottom and side to side, on the faces of the teeth. The only reason I would have changed the gears would have been to change the ratio. Anyway, I promise to get up to Land Auto (the only place local that's worth a hoot for Jeep parts) and get a selection of shims to do this right!

P.S. Dave - thank you for the tact...I appreciate it! However, words like "foolhardy" and "dumb_$$" are okay with me if I deserve them. Thanx again, Spence.

[jpdocdave]

hey, no problem, i didnt read all of what went on here, or what happened to your axle. but if you simply removed the yoke, and can't torque it properly when reinstalling, i'd look at the pinion bearings, they could be bad, and thats whats causing them to over load when simply putting it back together with the same pinion shims. or, they were not installed properly from someone before.

[Harper]

I'm just wondering...if, according to your original post, you were good at 210 ft/lbs, and the specs called for 200-220, why not just keep the same shims and torque it again to 210?

[spence]

jpdocdave, History. The original Dana 35 self-destructed at 168K miles. I purchased this '88 MJ Dana 44 from a Upick in Clearwater with 178K miles on it (according to the odometer). It felt good but needed seals. When I took it apart to inspect for gear wear, etc., I found that all looked good, and original, inside. The biggest issue with the whole axle was that the driver's side brake backing plate was corroded with holes through it. It had the 10"x2 1/2" brakes and I couldn't readily find a replacement. The Dana 35 that was originally in the truck still had the factory paint on it and all of it's parts, so I had my local machine shop enlarge the center hole of it's 10"x1 3/4" backing plates to fit the D44. New seals and axle outers were installed, and a new pinion seal as well. It was when re-installing the yoke and pinion nut that the problem occurred, as described at the beginning of this thread. I tried sneaking back up on it but by the time I got to 180 ft/lbs., the bearings were overloading. Thanx, Spence.

[jpdocdave]

well maybe a shim got lost, or the bearings are bad, thats all i can think of.

[spence]

I was dimayed to find that Land Auto is no longer in business. However, one thing leads to another, and my machine shop steered me to a place that I didn't know existed. Harrison Brothers, a local axle and swamp buggy builder, had a stack of D44 pinion preload shims. They let me mic my way through the stack, and only charged me $5.00 for the 6 shims I selected. They then, without my asking, carefully instructed me on the procedure for installing them correctly, warning that most people (and even the factory) set them up too tight. They said that if they're set up correctly, 300,000 miles of axle duty is not unheard of. They also have a large inventory of new and used axle parts. I'm going to be stopping by there again within the week, so I'll get and post all of the pertainent contact info. Thanx, Spence.