Norcal69's Common Sense Build.

I really like that exhaust. I sure would like to try and make that happen.

 

Thanks for the compliments guys. I have spent more money on the jeep than I wanted, but everything that I have done has paid off. I am very happy with the jeep. The female of choice begged me to let her take the jeep hunting for 2 weeks. She drives it on a regular basis so I wasn't too worried. She left last night, by 8 am this morning she had this on the hitch carrier.




It's considerably bigger than what I would normally shoot, but for a 5'2" 125 lb female all by her self id say she did well. She shoots a lefty Remington 700 30-06. I think a ring is in her future!

 

She sounds like a good woman, just don't whiz her off. You might not want to get In a firefight with her.

 

I'm getting my super top doors installed. Is there any reason to leave the upper door weatherstripping extra long as it comes from bestop? It seems to get in the way.

 

If I remember, they leave it long to trim to fit your application.

 

Yep, just trim it to fit your application, as we all know, every dimension on every jeep is absolutely identical =P </sarcasm>

 

On the last leg of the honeymoon, I lost a drivers side rear axle seal. I checked the rear axle fluid level and we continued home the last 100 miles. We were in the middle of no where and I figured that the tow bill would exceed the damage parts in cost. To be completely honest, I really had no idea how long it had been leaking but the fluid was still full.
I pulled the axles last night:
Drivers side, I ended up having to heat the hub with a torch and tweaked it with the snap on axle puller before it flew off. like 4' across the room. The outer race had spun in the housing a tiny bit. I could dimple the housing end to tighten up the slip fit. The inner race had spun on the axle shaft and slid off the axle with a slight tap.
So drivers side we need: 1 hub, 1 axle, bearings and axle seal. After all that we will still have a less than stellar design with a possibly compromised housing end.
Passenger side, I was able to remove the hub with the puller and heat without damaging it. The bearing and axle seals were past their prime but the axle and housing were fine.
I'm thinking about throwing all of this away and putting together a full float kit with parts sourced locally and from Herm. I have read all the full float info that I can here on the site and it seems that the majority of guys like it (Warloch, Posi, 47v6, ect......). This would also easily allow me to flat tow if I wanted. I have also considered upgrading to discs at the same time.
At the same time, I'm going to take a look at my power lock. If it needs rebuilt, I was thinking about pulling it and replacing it with a trutrac and going to 30 spline axles.
So many options. Anybody have opinions about the trutrac vs power lock? I know that the 30 splines would be stronger.

 

I ended up rebuilding my power lock and center section. The internals weren't too bad but I went with new clutches. The pinion bearings were toast. I went with all new timken USA bearings. My ff kit arrived from Herm today. I went with the all new parts kit based on his advise. For now i am going to run drive flanges. I am planning on installing the whole mess this weekend along with a home brew u bolt flip kit.

 

cool. Doing disks or 11" drum?

 

For now I'm sticking with my 10" drums on the rear. The future plans are for discs on the rear.

 

FF kit is installed. Everything went smooth. I haven't installed my U bolt flip yet as the rear rebuild took longer than expected and I have custom U bolts on order.
In the meanwhile my computer took a crap, so as soon as repairs are made I'll get some pics of the process up.

 

Major bad news for you guys wanting to see the install of Herm's ff kit. A freak stumble on the beach and my phone is now swimming with the fishes. It was a brand new iPhone 6 plus. My hard drive on my computer died two weeks earlier and it looks as if there will be a minimal amount of data recovered from that. I had not backed up my new phone yet either so all recent pictures not cloud backed up are gone as well.
I did put a little over 500 miles on Herm's ff kit this last weekend and I am very pleased. The install is very easy straightforward. I purchased the kit that included drive flanges and all new parts. Make sure that you purchase the axle seals from him . They are a custom made seal that 90% of people do not have access to. Herm did not tell me about the special seal when I ordered the kit from him less bearings and seals.(I get all my bearings and seals from a sponsor)
Needless to say I was pissed when I got ready to install and found that I did not have he correct seal. If you look through my build you can see that I have spent allot of money with Herm. One would think that he would give a multiple time repeat customer a heads up on something like that.
I could not find a seal with the exact dimensions of the axle and housing. I crossed the dimensions over to metric and found one that was within a few thousands of what I was looking for. I ordered it through my local applied industrial technologies. My local napa couldn't get it, rock auto was out of stock and O relies was 2 weeks out.
The seal is SKF 12759 dimensions are 32mm x 58mm x 8mm. Kaman and Motion industries list the seal but were out of stock. McMaster Carr and MSC do not have a listing for it.
I put everything together without the seal and test drove it for a couple days while I waited for it to arrive. When I tore it down to install the seal I did find some gear oil had reached he drivers side outer spindle. I installed the seal, replaced the bearings and away for went for the weekend. Over 500 miles and no leaks past the axle seals.

 

To be fair, the seal was included, but I was trying to save a $100 or so as I get all my bearings and seals for free from a racing sponsor. I declined to purchase them from him. I assumed that the seal was an off the shelf part and would be easily sourced through my sponsor. I would have thought he would have given a heads up about his custom made seal.

 

Thanks for the info about the seal, Norcal. Next time I'm down by Herm's place I should arrange to stop in and pick up a few extras. I'll put that on my "to do" list.

If you can find a commonly available seal that is close but slightly too small, you could take the shafts in and have the seal area ground to that size, possibly...

 

Too bad about the phone, would've liked to see some pics of how yours turned out. Good to know about the seals, I wonder if they would dry out if greased and not used so you could have some spares hanging around?

 

Looks like my rear discs are going to be happening sooner than expected. I stumbled across this on C-list last night.
Its a 25 with a powerlock disc brakes and giant knuckles. I'm not sure what the knuckles are off of. I don't plan on installing this axle as my 27 is rebuilt with discs but I may rob the knuckles and brakes, then part out the rest. The 25 powerlock and 5.38 gear is really of no use to me.





Those knuckles.......