Dana 44 Eaton E-locker Was Dana 44 19 Spline

Last I heard- yes. I'll call & find out

 

Brilliant! Why didn't I think of that?

& As luck would have it I just happen to have a two speed rear axle switch and hand pressed bracket!!!

 

More progress, not as much as I'd like but progress.

Got the pumpkin end of the wiring sorted out, made up a feed-thru fitting.














Next weekend I'll finish off the wiring using a two speed rear axle switch and hand pressed bracket- a BIG callout to Jw60 for the idea!

 

New bearings are on (was careful NOT to spill coke on the glove pinky fingie this time) and the the C-Thingie is, after maneuvering it over my head in a limited space whilst prone on my back on a creeper that wanted to go that way while I was trying to insert the heavy object C-Thingie this way, in. I thought I'd be smart this time & block the creeper casters, which under normal circumstances will not roll over a misplaced strand of hair on the floor, with a wedge.

The wedge slid

Oh well.



It went in a lot harder than with the setup bearings but the backlash is the same.

Do *NOT* ask me about removing the old bearings from the the 19 spline axes, removing the comparatively new bearings from the 10 spline axles & re-installing the relatively new bearings on the 19 spline axles.

A grinder with a cut-off wheel, torch, BFH, pipes and bearing puller breakage were all involved & that's all I've got to say about that.

The axles are in but it was a close thing with the shim setting- there was about 50 thou stickout on the bearing race on the passenger side with the spacer hard up against the spider shaft. When I made the spacer I wondered if I should have made the hole wider but it was actually a bit wider than the stock Dana piece. I suspect the Eaton center shaft/spiders are offset a bit towards the passenger side compared to the Dana.

Anyhow it was looking bad for a bit- the driver side cup was recessed into the tube at the same time until I found I had 40 thou worth of shims rtv'd to the back side of the retainer that i was using to set the cup driver side cup with.

Whew

So with no shims on the driver side I ended up with .035" on the passenger side, with everything torqued down I've 2.5 thou slack, which i fully expect will open up a bit more with a few miles on it.

Yes I know the number don't add up. Go away.



Now I mentioned before that things seemed a bit watery when I drained the gear oil & the bearing cups were not in good shape.



There was also a lot of brown stuff on the pumpkin flange .



I finally got around to cleaning up the diff cover & got a bit of a shock-



I can't believe this was due to condensation just sitting in the garage & other than that it's a few hundred miles all on the highway- this if baffling the heck out of me.

Cleaned it up & rust painted it a nice bright yellow which should be fully dried by next weekend.



Hook up & bleed the brake lines next week & that should be it.

 

Didn't get much done on the weekend.

Cleaned up the axle shafts & re-assembled.







And bled the brakes.

Note- if you spend 40 minutes trying to figure out why the pedal keeps going to the floor but no bubbles are coming out of any of the bleed screws front, back, @ the MC, the proportioning valve or the tee's then the odds are you forgot to put the brake drums back on.


Do not ask me how I know this

One nasty surprise I found was that the e-locker takes up a lot more room inside the pumpkin than the Dana does, resulting in a *very* close fit the the cover.





It does clear, just. I could get a .010" feeelr gauge in the but there's not a lot more than that, good thing I used a gasket this time around.

The fill plug was running right into it requiring some modifications.





Fill plugs to not appear to be precision machined objects, it took a few tries in which fill plugs were sacrificed for the greater good but I finally got one with a tight fit in the cover that cleared the locker.

Wiring is run from the axle to up under the dash but still not happy with it- gonna require some more of the think'n stuff Also had a bit of a bad feeling when I hooked up the juice & rotating one axle shaft did not result in the other turning in the same direction- in fact it turned in the other direction just like an open diff; it took me about 20 minutes to realize that with the design on this unit it won't lock without the drive shaft turning.

However it should all be working next weekend.

 

The ramps are an issue, not sure how a big an issue it is in real life but I'll find out & report back. I don't think a hanging wheel will be an issue, if the locker turns then it will lock.

 

Well it's done

Finished the wiring, stuck the tires back on & verified it works-





Ignore the clicky noises- that's got to do with another ongoing projest- Top secret HushHush





Hey- it only took five years