4 Wheel Disc and Rear D44 Full Float Conversion Writeup

You have water don't you?
I use straight water all the time when I run out of soluable oil. Motor oil works fine also.

 

Ever here of using condensed milk?

 

Great ideas. Condensed Milk? Seriously? I guess I need a pan with a recirc pump. And a "real" drill press (The one I have now is a $40 Northern Tool benchtop with some bad run-out). One of these days. I've looked at this one due to the slow 140 rpm speed it can run:
http://www.grizzly.com/products/12-Speed-Heavy-Duty-14-Floor-Drill-Press/G7944

But I digress ... sorry to hijack my own thread!

 

An old timer told me about condensed milk. Not sure if he was serious or not. Its hard to tell with those old guys sometimes. It has all the properties we are looking for though. Cooling and lubricating and cost compared to cutting oils.

 

Lard works even better and is probably one of the best things to use to tap holes with. Crisco will work in a pinch just not as well.

 

All I have to say, after using up a bunch of Dremel Tool bits, is that anybody attempting this should follow Posimoto's advice. Maybe even a 7/16" drill bit?

OK - finally have my front caliper brackets fitting. Maybe I can clean them and paint them tomorrow. I'm going to stop predicting anything beyond the next small step.

Axles and hubs should be here tomorrow.

 

Keep it up, man! I am glued to this thread!!

TimD

 

X2, Also I appreciate the detailed write-up!

 

Got my hubs back from Mcruff, and got a bunch of goodies from Herm!





Those Warn hubs look like works of art.

Got my brackets painted and got my hubs mounted to the rotors. The rotors were hard to hold while turning lug nuts to pull the studs in. I ended up using some of that stuff you put under rugs to keep them from slipping on both sides of the rotor and gently clamping the rotor to the corner of my wood workbench. It took me about 15-20 minutes each by hand to gently pull the studs in. Prolly shoulda painted the hubs before mounting them to the rotors, but oh, well.



Painted brackets - inside where it's warm and they can cure (wife complains about the smell):



Also got a bunch of gaskets and seals that I ordered from Krage. In addition, I ordered the "Tie rod flip inserts" from Go Fer It: http://www.goferitoffroad.com/products.htm ... they should be here next week.

Finally, I've had some questions about the rear spindles. Been corresponding "off line" with Nickmil and Herm on that. I'll try to post the outcome when we come to conclusions on three (at the moment, maybe more) questions:
- How to machine the inside of the spindle for clearance
- How to best machine the back shoulder of the spindle to fit the axle housing
- What to do about the "center pin" or "spacer" that's in between the current tapered axles, since the axles I got from Herm do not use C-Clips on the outboard ends to control float

More later!

 

So I guess that center pin/spacer was only to help set pre-load on the tapered axle bearings?

E-mail from Herm says "I would not remove the centering pin".

I don't think it will hurt to leave it in.

 

So, after some discussions and MUCH help from Nickmil, I've come up with the following proposed dimensions for my rear spindles ... any input? I am anxious to pull the trigger, and Mike is anxious to fire up the lathe!

This will give me about 0.070" difference between the axle OD and the spindle ID:




I think my spindles are about 1.230" ID, so to get to 1.255", I'll have to take 0.0125 out of the sidewall of the spindle, leaving a sidewall thickness of 0.185 (about 3/16") and I think this is acceptable, however Jim Wiseman's writeup in the Tech section says he was uncomfortable going any larger than 1.250 ID.

Edit: I decided to be slightly conservative and change my dimension to 1.250 +0.005/-0.0 from my original dim of 1.255 ... I am probably splitting hairs at this point ...

Would love opinions and feedback on this!

As to the shoulder on the back face that fits into the axle housing, Nickmil says:

Again, thanks for all of the help, Nickmil, and everyone else that's given me input. There is no way I could attempt something like this without the help of you all and I would not even know Mike, so I would just be stuck. This board is awesome!

 

I did Pete w/ the same tie rod flip. It worked great on the 27 but on the 30 not so good. When you add degree shims to set caster properly it rotates the tie rod into the shocks. Its not too bad and I'm staying w/ the flip but you will probably have to "fix" the shocks. I took a piece of 1/2" pipe and hammered in some relief in the shock body. It doesn't take much and there has been no issues with shock travel so I think its copescetic.:v6:

 

Final drawing sent into Mike for machining:



To see a Larger Version: click here

 

Rocky, thanks for the heads up. I am going to wait to do the flip until I have everything on the Jeep and can look at the impact of "flipping". I may end up just flipping the drag link, but we'll see.

 

Just so you guys know, I had a little bit of an issue with pulling the studs through into the hubs.

Studs:



The serrated portion of the stud protrudes slightly from the face of the bub, so I had to pull them through in two steps ...

1) pulling through using a reversed lug nut (i.e. the flat face of the lug nut) until it bottomed out. The hub was still slightly loose on the rotor at this point.

2) putting a spacer on (larger than the diameter of the stud serrations so the serrations could come up through the face of the hub, and that spacer thin/short enough that still allowed plenty of threads to put the lug nut on). Then using the reversed lug nut again to finish pulling the stud in. I used a 3/4 inch nut for the spacer and it was almost too tall as I ruined one of my lug nuts because it did not engage enough threads on the stud. Stud looks OK.



I'll have to look at the backs of my wheels - hopefully there is a little relief there to allow for the bit of stud protrusion. If not, I'll have to do a slight counter-bore.

More later.

 

Got the brackets mounted up. I think I'm gonna wait to put the 80 lbs or so of rotors, hubs, and calipers on until I get this thing under my Jeep. I'm going to rebuild the Warn locking hubs next, and the seal the diff back up. May try to get a coat of paint on this thing before it goes under the Jeep.

 

Ran into an interesting situation when cleaning my old D30 Warn hubs up:

http://www.earlycj5.com/forums/showthread.php?p=769768

 

Spent the day wire brushing and painting some items as well as chasing a lot of holes with a tap. Some real sharp guy had used RTV on the lockimg hub-to-hub bolts and it took me a while to clean that out.

My other task was to make some studs for the hub-to-hub connection. I bought some Grade 8 all-thread from McMaster and cut it into 2.5 in. pieces and cleaned them up on the bench grinder. Cleaned everything really good with brake cleaner and set the studs in the hub with Red Locktite. Picture below shows a std nut, but I plan on using an alloy nylock nut in the final build.





In looking closely at two of my hubs, I think they are kind of questionable. More evaluation needed here. Also, having some difficulty getting some of the bearing races into the hubs. Some go in with a brass punch, some won't. I put them in the freezer and may set the hubs on my Kerosene heater and see if the hot hub / cold cup combination will help.

More later.