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Silent One's Solid Axle Journey

60K views 333 replies 64 participants last post by  silent one 
#1 ·
I have been kind of slacking off a little so i thought if i start a thread it might get me more motivated to work on it and keep this up to date. So i invite you to follow along on my journey.

Chapter 1
The day i got my axle in all its rusted glory.




All the junk it came with.

As it sits now.

 
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6
#2 ·
Chapter 2

Rust removal

So everything is very rust and i am kind of lazy for i found a chemical rust removal that i can just throw partin and don't have to worry about it, just wait 24 hours and change out parts.

Here is what i used.



Before


After 24 hours


The stuff turned black.
 
#260 ·

Pic stolen from Page 1 :goodfinge
In this pic I see a strapped shock with ~1-2" of rod showing, and typically you can compress them further to remove the strap. So it seems to me that the eye must compress all the way to the shock body




Trimmed the cross member a little, once I figure out what i'm doing for a p/s cooler i'll trim it a little more.

Did you ever cut this up further? Because I do not believe that to be enough room to clear at full bump.

Here's a pic of when I was mocking up my D60. I have more lift than you, and cut up higher. Found this to not be enough room, and had to 'cut the corner' on the d.side to make additional room for the tracbar otherwise it would tag it.
 
#7 ·
So i was looking around on Pirate one day saw this deal on ARB lockers, if you buy the locker you get a free compressor and if you buy 2 you get a nicer compressor and and air hose but 2 are out of the budget at the moment so i went for one.

So i shopped around and found my best deal of 752 shipped from TrentFab so i ordered it last week and got it today.



Now to answer the question, do i need an ARB locker probably not, do i want an ARB locker yes. My reasoning is because i have to build my axle so i might as well do it while i am in there and i got a good deal so i went for it.
 
#8 ·
'Bout time you started getting your stuff together... :eek:) Been a long time coming.

As far as the locker, I think it was a good choice. It would cost you a lot more to re-do it later since you already have to pay to set up the gears now.

-
 
#12 ·
I got all the parts that come with the arms, C bushing mounts,arms,frame mounts and all the hardware and why is it wierd.

An opportunity presented itself and i jumped on it. A member here G.I. Jake posted that he had Cage arms for sale and i PM'ed him and i was going to buy just the arms and pay for shipping but he said he would deliver them if i just gave him the money i was going use to pay for the shipping(8 hour drive) and he told me he had this other stuff too so we worked out a deal and i took it all and think i got a good deal.
 
#16 ·
I got the Evaporust Here and i works good at first but after a few very rusty parts the strength weakend and they had to stay in longer. I will still need to hit them with a wire wheel but i will save me a lot of time.

The evaporust is ment for parts soaking so bushing it on will not work well.
 
#25 ·
So i got some stuff done, nothing exciting just some cleaning and after cleaning the axle housing my back feels great.:whiteflag

Cleaned and primed the axle shafts.


Cleaned one knuckle.




And cleaned the axle housing, wire wheeled it and the scrubbed it a scotch brite pad and some water and simple green.






I still need to do the inside of the housing but i might take it to work and use the parts washer.
 
#26 ·
So i had so time to kill today and "thought" i would do something easy an install my axle u-joints. I got the short side together fairly easy but it did fight me a little. The long side is a different story, i put the u-joint in the axle shaft side and can not get one of the C clips into the cap, it off by just a hair just enough to not let the clip seat into the cap.

Can i file the ear down a hair so the clip with go in or am i mising something. I have done u-jiont before and never ran into this problem.
 
#32 ·
I had the same problem with the u joints. I dont think mine was a needle bearing. Mine was off by a thousands of an inch. I think mine was due to the new outers not being a spicer part but a different brand. It was tight so I ground off a hair of the c clip, it was so marginal i have no worries of it failing, had it been a bearing keeping the clip out of the axle it would not have even come close to clearing... i think. The movement in all directions was smooth so i dont think there is a bearing missing in the joint.
 
#33 ·
The other thing to keep in mind is don't add grease to the inside of the cups at this time. If they are non-greasable they should have come with the proper amount of lube, if greasable, wait until you get the caps and C's all in before greasing. just makes it harder to compress the cap all the way in, especially with new, tight seals.
 
#37 ·
if it feels tight there is an easy way to get it to move smoothly, whatever side of the pinion is tight hang it off a table or a piece of wood and hit it firmly but not hard, flip it 180 degrees and hit it again, it will be smooth in all directions after that, it just means you hit the caps on tight, mine are free moving after the above sequence was done. just something i figured would loosen em up a bit. :thumbup
 
#36 ·
nice build........:popc1:
 
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