Back at er again. My mickey mouse DS setup was vibrating, and is just plain not right, so I bit the bullet and went for a SYE kit. All in all, the kit is fairly simple to install, but by far the worst part was dealing with the large snap rings. Thankfully I had did some research before I started, and bought a GOOD set of large snap ring pliers.
Onwards. Here is my old driveline setup, which is a whopping 12" from pivot point to pivot point. It doesn't really look bad in this pic with weight on the wheels, but it actually binds solid at full droop.
First up was to support the transmission, and remove the skid plate to get access to the transfer case. I promptly snapped off all 3 bolts on the drivers side
I pulled the drive shafts, removed the front yoke, then needed to pull the harmonic balancer from the rear of the tcase. This is something TJ's have, and mine since its a TJ case. Three 6mm x 1 pitch metric bolts (or in this case screws) are needed to pull the balancer. After running a tap through the cruddy holes, it pulled right off without issues just by jamming the bolts in.
Seal, snaprings and then tail cone removed.
Then the rear housing is removed, to see all the internals.
The front output, rear output and chain all come out without issue, just yanked em.
Here is my new rear output shaft, after swapping the gears over and so much cursing and swearing at the friggin snap rings. Who the hell makes a snap ring without holes for the pliers anyways? Grr.
Jammed the guts back into it, noticably shorter now.
Then put it back together, with more snap rings holding on the new speedo gear, did I mention I hate these things yet?
And here she is completed!
Initially, my shifter would jam up going into 4lo, and I was terrified that I would have to pull the case apart again. However, it was just the shift sector shaft (under that little cap by the speedo cable) that wasn't clearing the edge of the recess in the tail cone. As soon as I loosened off the tail cone a bit, I heard it pop into place. Tightened em back up, and it now shifts through all ranges smooth as butter. Crisis averted!
Ok, now its time for a driveshaft. Heres a pic my old, ground out shaft, and the new to me, soon to be shortened, XJ front shaft. All joints and centering ball replaced of course. (Yes, with spicer stuff). The slip portion is very good (unlike my floppy front driveshaft).
I measured from mounting surface, to mounting surface under the jeep, with its full weight on the axle, and got 18.5 inches. This would be the size I need my DS to be when in its center position. The new shaft needed 14.5" chopped out of it to be the correct length.
Scoring around the weld, at the cv end with a grinder, going deep enough to cut through the tube, but not into the slug.
A couple bangs from a BFH and shes out.
Using a chop saw, I then shortened the shaft. I had to remove the seam and hone out the inside slightly to get the slug to fit. After its back together, I do a measurement to see if I compensated right for grinder width. I moved it in and out, and this is the center point. Close enough for me
Using a giant chunk of I-beam as a straight reference, I made sure the fixed ears of the shaft were in phase with one another, and the shaft was relatively straight to give me a base line for tweaking.
A couple of tack welds, and I bolted it up. Here you can see me making use of a redneck runout gauge.
Setting the end of the pointer just a HAIR above the shaft allows me to judge the high and low points.
A few whacks with the hammer bends the little tack welds enough to bring the DS straight. This actually worked very well, there is no discernible wobble when spinning the shaft. A few more tacks, then the drive shaft was removed to fully weld it in its final position.
Now the big question, how messed up are my angles? I downloaded this little app on my phone, and it is surprisingly accurate. People who reviewed it, use it for cutting angles and stuff and say its great, so its good enough for me.
DS angle reference to ground.
Rear pinion angle, reference to ground.
So, my pinion needs to come up lots. 8-10 degrees, depending on where you read, and that is too much for shims I think. Also, I want to remove my Tcase drop, and that'll make it even worse. I'll have to cut off the freshly welded perches, and rotate the axle so I can get the correct angle. It drives great, up to about 80kph, even though my angles are way off. However, if I want to do any highway driving, and not go through u-joints, I need to rotate my pinion. (not this weekend though, lol)
That was actually quite a bit of work, but I am very pleased how well the rear DS came out. With the jeep on jack-stands, and the rear wheels spinning in gear, there is virtually no wobble to be seen. Well, that was Friday and Saturday shot.
Rob D