Custom Axles = Custom Components

[LuckyCharm4x4]

This is what I posted a few years ago at another site. I thought that it may be helpful to someone.


When dealing with custom axles it makes you have to customize a lot of crap. Here is how I resolved some of them, hopefully this helps some of you or gives you an idea.


Well here's what I'm dealing with for those of you who can't keep all of my info straight.

-1983 CJ7, 98 ZJ 4.0L, T5 (later switched to an NV3550), D300, 4" suspension, 1”BL, 1" Shackle Lift, shackle reverse, 35’s
-Front: Dana 44, Detroit Softlocker, 4.56 gearing, custom length, D30 Knuckles so I could keep CJ outers and brakes and such.(I know it’s weaker, but I needed to save some money and use stuff I already had.)
-Rear: Dana 60, Detroit Softlocker, 4.56 gears, custom length, Ford ends welded on so I could use Ford 9” big bearing 11” drums and retain the 5x5.5” CJ bolt pattern.
-I don’t know what vehicle the axles are out of, but I think the rear may have been out of a Chrysler.


Here are some of the problems I ran into and how I solved them:


U-Bolt plates

well it turns out that no one knew what I wanted when I was asking around for u-bolt plates, parts store guys are dummies. So here’s what I came up with.

I used a ford shock plate from a 9” for my rear plates. For the Front I hear that you can use them from anything with a d44 front with leaf springs, but I couldn’t find ANYTHING at any parts stores or online, so I had to custom make the front ones. (You might notice that the one on the left the holes are slightly farther apart, this is because the ubolt has to go over the diff.) (also the studs on the plates are for the sway bar links, the threads got cut off and the stud was welded into the plate.)











Shock mounts

Well vehicles need shocks, on the front my axle had some mounts built on it already. On the rear I was thinking about cutting one side off of some 2x2 square tubing(making it like a c-channel) and rounding one side to fit the curvature of the axle. This could have worked, but I found it would be too hard for me to weld onto the axle with the angles I was left with. So, I opted to use plan B. Which was, to make an L-bracket that would get bolted on underneath the u-bolt plates and get held on with the u-bolts.







This lasted for 8 months and then they broke. I have since replaced them with some mounts that are welded directly onto the axle.





Steering

(keep in mind that if you have stock axles or stock width, you wouldn't need to go this route and could probably find a stock or HD linkage cheaper, like here: http://www.goferitoffroad.com/other_products.htm for $132)

I thought about inverted-t setup, using dodge 3/4" TRE's or TJ 5/8" TRE's, but with the help of some people here I got a spark in my mind and this is what I came up with.

Things to buy or needed:
- 4 stock CJ Tie Rod Ends (2-LH, 2-RH) I found cheap here: http://www.oconeeoffroad.com/servlet/Categories (search that site for CJ tie rod)
- About 8' of O.5"IDx1”OD DOM tubing, I got it for about $50-70
- The nuts were cheap at the hardware store
- 11/16-18 LH and RH taps are around $30 a peice http://www.speedwaymotors.com/p/3106...rial-Taps.html
- Drill bits (don’t know the size, but whatever it takes to tap a hole to 11/16”)
- 4- 5/8" Nuts
I think all in all I have about $150 into the rods(I only bought one tap, I had the other one), and another $50-60 into the flip.

Steps:
1) Lay out the bar and TRE’s and cut the bar to the length you need
2) Drill and tap both ends of the bar, one side RH and one side LH
3) Drill out the 5/8” nut and drill and tap those 2 of each RH and LH, to be used as jamb nuts.
4) Put the nut on the TRE and insert the TRE into the bar and adjust it to desired length, voila!
5) This would also be a good time to flip your tie rods on top of the knuckles, but that’s a different story, I got mine from here: http://www.goferitoffroad.com/products.htm (note: with my 4” lift I need a stock pitman arm instead of my dropped pitman arm)










Driveshafts

For the front, I already had a Tom Woods shaft so I just got it shortened to my desired length. Since the D44 is longer than the D30 and with SRS if any extensive compression happened to my springs I could just see my driveshaft bottoming out and slamming my d300 into pieces! Sad.

For the rear I didn’t want to have any vibes and I didn’t feel like dropping my t-case or messing with getting the PERFECT angle. So I got an XJ front driveshaft from the junkyard for ($69) and the yoke that goes with it ($30) and got it shortened and I installed it in my Jeep. When setting my angle I just measured the angle of the output yoke of my d60 and set the angle of the driveshaft about 2-4 degrees below that. No vibes and I love it.






Once again these are just the issues that I had and what I did to fix them. If I have any problems I will post them, but as for now it’s working. Also there is a lot more that went into it, I just wanted to post some of the small problems that come up and some people wouldn’t think of, so have at it and hopefully this helps spark your imagination

~Bry