OK, so its been a busy summer and a few months since the last update. Haven't done a done a whole lot with the truck, other than some maintenance (some forced, some voluntary). I have been (slowly) working on getting the new to me rear axle ready to install.


I am in a constant battle with front suspension components...






I was getting some vibration out of the front drive shaft and ended up replacing the axle side u-joint.




Then a few weeks later the rear drive shaft tried to "un-install" itself on the highway (what an exciting day that was...) which caused the exhaust to follow suit. So, I had to rebuild the exhaust from the cats back.




Back on the truck (excuse my photogenic hand).




New rear hanger





While laying under the truck working on the exhaust, I noticed that the rear gas tank strap had pulled out of the frame cross-member....   so I've got some more rust repair on my list now.





Some more fall-out from the drive-shaft incident, I had to put new u-joints in the rear drive shaft....






Ok, so on a more exciting note, I've been making some decent progress on the new rear axle.

A little back story on the axle, I bought it from a guy that had "built it" for his jeep TJ, but was upgrading to one-tons. I bout it with the understanding that the it was all ready to go and just needed to be converted from coils to leafs. Well, I knew by looking at the axle that the guy wasn't a welder (welds were AWFUL), but once I opened it up, I found out that he  (or the guy he hired) didn't know how to set up gears either. So, I've ended up rebuilding most of the axle. Which has been way more work and money than I wanted, but I've learned a lot and have a little more confidence in the final product.


Any-who, I started by stripping the axle down to the housing and then started the painful process of cutting off all of the coil brackets and bubble-gum welds.






















My "custom" spanner wrench for the pinion flange




Mocking up the spring perches








Shock mount






Mocking up shock mounts











To be continued.....

Last edited on Mon Oct 7th, 2019 09:48 pm by Jimmyspy