Rebuild Front Axle & New Rear Axle

[SAR Jeepster]

Its time to upgrade my axles to accommodate larger tires and heaver gear loads for longer duration trips. I had a Dana 44 from a 75 Jeep Wagoneer in the front. This axle has a strong housing with 2 3/4”, 3/8”wall tubes. I chose to rebuild this axle adding 4.88 gears, ARB Locker, Yukon Chrome-Moly Axle shafts, Mad 4 Wheel Drive Axle seals, new ball joints and a Solid Axle Differential Cover. I changed the 7/16 wheel studs to 9/16 to match the new rear axle.

On the rear I had a Dana 44 from 89 Jeep Wagoneer. This axle had 2 3/4”, 1/4” wall tubes and a single small bearing to support the heavy end of my Jeep. This axle has bent on me before and I was able to straiten it and add a truss between the spring perches. This lasted a few more years but was like putting a Band-Aid on a broken arm. This axle bent again between the spring perches and the wheel so its time to remove and scrap this axle and replace it with a new stronger one.
I wanted to find an axle that I wouldn’t have worry about the extra weight of all of the gear on longer expeditions or pulling trailers off-road. A full floating axle has the benefit of 2 bearings to support the weight and the axle shaft only transforms rotation not having to support any weight. My current axles were 6 on 5 ½” and I have 3 sets of rims so staying with that bolt pattern and increasing the lug bolts diameter made more sense.

 

[SAR Jeepster]

New Rear Axle

I order a rear Full Floating High Pinion Dana 60 Axle from Solid Axle Industries with 4.88 gears, ARB Locker, disk brakes and 6 on 5 ½ bolt pattern. The guys at Solid Axle Industries are great to work with they built the axle to my specifications from all new parts. While there were building my axle I got the other parts need to complete the install, new spring perches, spring plates, U-bolts, shock mounts, hard brake lines and an ARB Heavy Duty Air Line.
:wings:The axle arrived on a Thursday after noon and it looks great. With the help of a good friend we had the axle installed that evening. We set the drive line angle and welded the spring perches, shock mounts, traction bar mount and brake line tabs. We cleaned all the welds and panted the axle. We installed the flexible brake lines and made the hard brake lines. After bolting the axle under the jeep we hooked the brakes and bleed them. We installed the ARB Heavy Duty Air Line, breather line, Traction Bar and anti-sway bar. The drive shaft needed to be shortened by 1 ½ inches and installed.

Friday we added gear oil and were ready for a test drive. :smiley_drive:After the successful test drive all bolts were checked and every thing visually inspected and I was able to make some trips to allow for the gears to break in. Friday night and Saturday was a snow trip with lots of stop and go driving. This trip was great allowing the gears to be worked with out building up heat. Both axles preformed great.

Here is a link about the snow run http://www.spotadventures.com/trip/view/?trip_id=187441#shareTrip

 

[SAR Jeepster]

Bearings

This is the last time a bearing went out, it seized and caused the axle shaft to over heat and break.This didn’t happen at the most convenient time or place I had been on the road for 14 hours and it was midnight on a narrow mountain pass.

The seized bearing compared to a new bearing.

In the new Dana 60 Axle the small outer bearing is larger than the only Dana 44 bearing.

 

[86cj]

Wow, that is a big improvement in bearing strength. It is great feeling to have your axles all upgraded and sorted out, Congratulations on the new HP60....

I am going to run a HP44 front and HP60 rear when the funds allow...:bowdown:.....

 

[SAR Jeepster]

An update on the new and rebuilt axles

I have completed the break-in period of 500+ miles. :smiley_drive:In the past if it even looks like rain I would have to change the fluid in the front axle. After deep water crossings, rain and snow there was no signs of moisture at all. I was reluctant to spend the money on quality synthetic gear oil when I would have many changes during the wet seasons. It seems the Mad 4 Wheel Drive Axle Seals are working great. So I feel that going to Amsoil Synthetic Gear Oil will help protect the investment I made in axles. I installed a FilterMAG I also got from Jp Vehicle Outfitters. The FilterMAG will help by keeping any metal from wear from getting into the seals on the ARB’s. The on road drivability was greatly improved by replacing the Detroit Locker with the ARB locker. The 4.88 gears work very well with the 37” tires giving me plenty of power to pull my trailer. The off road performance is still very good with a crawl ratio of over 85:1.:safari-rig:. I can’t weight to get back on the road just the small issue with repairing the trailer after it rolled last year.