Capitol Blue TJ

[Java]

Those brackets are beefy. Good job on the axle prep, the tubes look like you had them chromed!

[dcoop]

Yesterday I went and picked up the HP30 and that afternoon I placed my final order with ECGS. Unfortunately I couldn't find one with 3.73 so I had to also order a new carrier.


Today I got as far as I could on the HP30 as I don't have the correct socket sizes for the pinion nut and ball joints. I didn't get an axle with both shafts as virtually every XJ at the junkyard has a missing long side shaft. I had to really beat the hell out of the short side to get the shaft/unit bearing off.








Here's the obligatory size difference shot, 8.8 obviously on the left and HP30 on the right.





I found the axle with the diff cover missing, it looked like it had been gone a while. The inside has quite a bit of dirt in it.





My parents will appreciate when I'm done and not taking up so much space in the garage.





Tomorrow and Tuesday I'm gone for CU orientation so, but I hope to get some more welding on the 8.8 done later in the week. This weekend the 8.8 should go in and the HP30 will follow suit the following weekend.

[Popsgarage]

Your '97 runs a low pinion front D30, correct? It sounds like you've done your homework. The HPD30 runs on the drive side of the gear as opposed to the LPD30 running on the coast side of the gear. Much stronger set-up. Never could figure out why Jeep/Dana Spicer went back to the low pinion set-up. Lookin' really good there, young man. I actually enjoy watching your progress. Wish more of the younger folks I know had your attention to detail. Can't wait to get back to the computer next week to see what you've accomplished next. Keep up the good work.

[Hypoid]

There is an easier way to do that. Leave the bolts in the unit bearing and drive them through the knuckle far enough to get a chisel between the knuckle and the bearing flange. Then, take out the bolts and use the chisel to wedge the unit bearing out.

[dcoop]

Popsgarage previously posted:

[xaza]

For taking mine off I seem to remember using the tool loan at Autozone for a slide hammer...but not last time...come to think of it, my brother had them off before I could get back from a parts run. Lookin good. Sorry but been a while since I read the beginning of this thread, is this your first build?

[Hypoid]

dcoop previously posted:

[dcoop]

Rear axle = success. Well, at least so far so good.

Friday worked on the brakes, had to modify the calipers so I could position the soft lines exactly how I wanted them. Just had to cut off the indexing tabs.





Made these to hold the soft lines onto the axle.







Don't have a pic, but for the hard brake lines I went and bought pre made lengths of brake line from Advance Auto. Already flared and with fittings, simple to bend with your thumbs.

Saturday, removed D35, good riddance.





Put the 8.8 in for a test fit.





Everything looked great. Clearances were great, way better than I was expecting. Only thing was we noted the shock mounts were on the wrong sides. No problem, they are only tacked on. Unfortunately though after welding everything up the shock mounts were still on the wrong sides. Problem was because the shock mounts and control arm mounts are so close I had welded up the shock mounts first to get both sides them welded up the control arm mounts. So to fix the shock mounts I had also had to cut the control arm mounts off. Took about an hour but I did get it all fixed.

Here's some of the welding

[dcoop]

Sunday

This should have been an easy day, throw gears in, double check everything, put axle in, button up. Of course things immediately went south. When I put the preload spacer/shims on the pinion I put the shims between the shoulder on the pinion and spacer, not on top of the spacer. When I put it in and torqued it down it messed the shims up and shot the preload up. The shoulder on the pinion isn't flat, is is slightly convex.





I couldn't get the right thickness with the shims I had, but luckily I had the crush sleeve from the install kit. Waste of 15$ on the spacer kit but oh well. Anyway went to install crush sleeve, crushed it to much. Spent the next 2 hours driving around trying to find a crush sleeve, which was eventually found at a Napa out of town (up in Berthoud). Finally got home and got the gears sorted out. Backlash was still good (.010") and pattern still looked good. Torqued cap bolts down clearanced the pumpkin for the sway bar, and threw it under the Jeep.





I went and rented a slide hammer from Advance Auto and at this point got the old bearings/seals removed. Went to go pound in the new ones.... uh oh they were way to small. Ran to Napa and picked up the right ones for 60$. After that I put the parking brake stuff on and put the shafts in.





Rotors and calipers went on, tires went on, put jeep on its own weight, tightened everything down, filled the diff with fluid, and took it for a drive. Not very surprising there is a pretty bad driveline vibration, so an SYE is in my very near future. However I've got less than a month until college starts, at which point I'll be leaving the Jeep at home (to cheap to pay for parking) so it will pretty much sit all winter. The SYE will probably be a winter project.

The new gears are amazing. Dead silent. I would highly recommend Nitro gears and def. shoot for the low end on backlash. Totally having to change the way I drive because my shift points are completely different. First gear will wind the engine up to 3k RPM very quickly, cruising is great. There is a noticeable difference with disk brakes in the back, not so much quicker stopping, but the pedal feels firmer and more consistent. Braking is better though in reverse.

Next the front axle.

[dcoop]

Here are some more bonus pictures.

[Hypoid]

That is a pretty ambitious project, nice write up!

[dcoop]

It's amazing how new bolts on all the control arms and shocks that are freshly tightened down can make a difference in handling. The rear feels tighter. Now I just need to ditch the stock arms for some nice Savvy arms.

[Popsgarage]

Lookin' good young man!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[dcoop]

No rest for the weary. Busted out the front axle this weekend, went a lot better as I knew what I was doing!

Went and got the sockets I needed. Pinion nut is 1 1/8". Got the pinion pulled out and found this guy.



Hmmm, not sure exactly what it was but looked like some kind of baffle. Quick internet search confirms this. For the high pinion this is a very important piece as helps keep oil in the pinion bearings. Another thing about the Dana 30 is the oil slinger that sits between the pinion head and inner bearing. Some people ditch it, however being a high pinion axle I didn't want to ditch anything. The new slinger that came with the install kit was .030" compared to the .060" of the old one, so I wasn't worried about to much shim.

Next I popped the inner seals out, pretty simple, just found a washer that was the right diameter and using the handle to my high lift I hammered them out.







I got a total of .080" for pinion shims, that's including the slinger and baffle. The new baffle that came with my install kit was .020" (just like the old one) and the new slinger was .030", so I added .030" in shims so I could start the new gears at .080". For the carrier I didn't want to waste my time cutting the bearings off the old carrier so I just kept adding equal shims on the carrier until it was tight.

First pattern with .080" under the pinion and backlash of .008".





To far away so I added .005" and checked again.





To close now. Swapped the .005" shim for a .003" shim and tried again.



(Missing the drive side pic, but it looks the same, just on the drive side )

Perfect! Added some shims to the carrier to increase preload and pressed new bearings on. Now the most nerve-racking part, how much did backlash change with the new bearings. Luckily it only increased .001" to .009", still in spec. That's as far as I got today as when I went to button it all up I put the new pinion seal on before the bearings and thrust washer, so I need to go get a new seal. I'll get it together tomorrow.

[Popsgarage]

You go kid. Been a busy body lately. Looks good.

[dcoop]

Any ideas on bent axle shaft ears? The wheel joints should have been replaced long ago. I tried pounding them out, using the ball joint press, and finally I gave up and used the press. I got it out but bent the ear. This was on the drivers side on the inner shaft. I tried again on the spare shaft, same thing bent ear. Not as bad but when I went to put the u joint in there is no way the clips are going in.

I guess I could try to bend it back, but am thinking it will weaken the already weak ears. Plus I can guarantee I'm going to have the same problem with the other shaft and possibly the stub shafts. I'm so done with all this I'm really close to just buying upgraded shafts for 500 bucks, but that means the SYE is not going to happen any time soon. Reality is the Jeep is about to sit for 6 months because I'm leaving it at home for college.

Thoughts? It's Sunday evening, at this point I'm going to be driving one of my parent's cars to work until I get this fixed. I'm hovering over the buy now button on a new pair of Nitro chromo shafts.

[Hypoid]

Bend it back, drive it like you stole it, order new shafts anyway. No reason to not drive it to work on a warm summer day.

[dcoop]

Okay so here's the deal. I started swapping in the HP 30 this weekend. Yesterday I got the old axle out and the new one into place on the control arms. Today I got the knuckles off and ball joints replaced. That took basically all day because the regular ball joint press I rented didn't have the right adapters. Went back and picked up the "master" kit, but didn't realize until I got home it was broken. Took it back and had to go further uptown to the next Advance Auto to get theirs. Got the knuckles back on and went to change out the wheel joints. Of course that's where things started going wrong.

I decided to just replace the shafts. I already placed an order with ECGS for a pair of Nitro chromoly shafts. They aren't Superior, but last I knew Superior was months out on their shafts. Plus after reading people seem to be extremely happy with the Nitro shafts and they have a good warranty. Hopefully they'll be here by the end of the week and everything will be put back together soon. I would have just bent it back put in the joint and put it back together with the old shaft but it was to late, there I still had to put the shafts back in, get everything bolted down, put steering back on, do alignment and fill diff.

Here are the only pictures I have from this weekend. HP 30 on before I replaced the ball joints.

[Popsgarage]

Where did you get your master install kit, cause mine did not come with the oil baffle or the oil slinger and bot got damaged getting them out?????????