Bet you can put a car seat in the passenger seat....

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We need to start a Dad's wheeling club :sonicjay:

 

We already have one. It's called great lakes 4x4. :sonicjay:

 

Touché :d:

 

https://youtu.be/Xwe7qDuoU5o

 

Thanks for the video John!

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I heard this things broken again?

 

You need a hi-9 in the front

 

I do need to upgrade the front.

Time for upgrades

:naughty::naughty:

Is it not always time?

Kyle keeps telling me "it should be solid now" Three years running :sonicjay:

 

Time for upgrades

 

Is it not always time?

 

Link bolts have seen better days. Time for some upgrades there too

 

So we did a thing, ribbed 14 bolt center with 05+ super duty outers. Found a place (Down to Fab) that sells new outers so decided to go that route instead of cutting up another axle. We kept the knuckles and highsteer from the old axle to adapt to this housing.

I found the new 14 bolt had 3.5" diameter axle tubes with a 1/4" wall thickness, didn't think that was enough so I sleeved the old tubes with dom 3", .120 wall. 3/8 total wall thickness, double layer, should be pretty stout.

Another hurdle to sort out was getting inner axle seals. Crane sells a fancy inner seal kit for a 14 bolt, it replaces the oe spanner for one machined to hold a seal. That eliminated the need to retube the axle for machined inner seals which really saved me some time.

 

Another hurdle to sort out was getting inner axle seals. Crane sells a fancy inner seal kit for a 14 bolt, it replaces the oe spanner for one machined to hold a seal. That eliminated the need to retube the axle for machined inner seals which really saved me some time.

That's pretty slick! Nice work Kyle :rock:

 

I need to find that style seal for a 9" center section!

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I went with these.
https://sealsit.com/product/economy-axle-seal/

One thing I can't understand is why people beef up axle tubes but fail to truss the axle for front impact. The tub can still break out of the center section.

 

Those are neat.

 

I’m just still impressed you were able to straighten that damn axle without killing yourself.


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Haha, I had to push it a long way.... Didn't die.... Winning

 

Cool. Will it get a shave?

 

Yes, nothing major, but it's shorter than the 60 by 1/4".

 

Looks good.

 

X2, looks great. What's the caster going to be set at?

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I was thinking someplace around 6° and 7°, that sound reasonable?

 

I wish I had Beefy's money.

 

Haha, you trying to take my work?

 

From what I understand more caster (to a point) helps traction while cornering and keeping the vehicle going in a straight line and not wandering. The down side is that more caster means it takes more force to turn the wheels, but with full hydro who cares. I set my 609 up with about 8 degrees of caster and so far am very happy with it, but dont have more than one summer's worth of seat time in it.

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How fast does beefy wheel?

I'd understand 6-7 in a baja rig. I had 6-7 in herman (xj) and it was almost too much but man it was nice going down the highway. higher caster results in worse steering at slow speeds as well.

I'd start more towards 3-4, assuming the fastest he'll be sustaining is a hill-n-hole or a bounty run. That should be managable at the dunes and on road without much hunting.

 

What do you mean by worse steering? The only steering complaint I have with my 8 degrees of caster is related to the full hydro and no feedback from a mechanical link. I daily drove my jeep for 10 days this summer and almost grew to prefer the steering in my jeep over my truck around town.

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I'm up around 7-8° on my 1 ton TJ. Started off lower and kicked it up a bit with zero complaints. Traditional steering with hydro assist. As long as you've got the steering power, more caster is typically better all around.

 

Idk, the high steer fits best at 6 or 7 so that's what he's getting, lol

Not really sure the benefits more or less would give. iirc, factory is about 4, and with the tire size your supposed to add a few degrees to help the steering return to center on the road. With that in mind, the racing aspect of his rig, the return to center may be nice if that principle acts the same with full Hydro.

 

Basically if the parts aren't falling off, run it!

 

Got the axle put back in position, up to full bump and figured out the new truss, link mounts and pinion angle. Once I knew that, I made new lower shock mounts to work with the new lower link mounts.

Next, I started putting together the new front driveshaft setup. We went with a wideopen design 1410 carrier bearing and their 1410 front shaft kit. The carrier bearing design is nice, just fitting it in this chassis isn't the easiest. I made a new mount to get the carrier bearing in and then built the shafts. The center is shaft is 3", 120 wall and the axle side driveshaft is 2.5" 1/4 wall. Old stuff was 2" both sides so it was a fight to get it all fitting. I had to clear the skid plate but I got it to cycle without issue.

 

Next I got the ram back as close to the original location and started building the front truss. I bent up some 1 3/4, 3/16 wall dom and fit it on the axle. Next I cut up some 1/4" plate to fill in the truss and give me a spot to mount the ram. Everything seems to fit well, cover comes off and the gears still come out.