Nothing Special's '71 Bronco

[Nothing Special]

And I'm reminded that I really like my welder.  The MIG unit at work has the power to get decent penetration on thick metal, but I was never a decent welder when I was using it.  And I'm not again.  Oh well, it ain't pretty but it'll hold.  And no, I'm not going to give you the photographic evidence!

Now on to the insides!

[Gary Lewis]

Been there, done that, and didn't record it either.  

[Nothing Special]

Not a lot of progress today, but I got to a point worth documenting, so...

Yesterday after welding everything up I made a tool to hold the pinion yoke so I could get the nut off (and back on later).  I don't know if that was necessary, but the only other time I tried to remove a pinion nut I had a heck of a time holding the yoke.  It wasn't hard to make so it seemed like a good idea.  With the tool and an impact wrench the nut came off easily.




Then I pulled the cover off.  Do you notice anything missing?



I knew the junkyard had opened the axle, removed the spindles and pulled the axle shafts.  That's why they also sent the '78 axle.  But I hadn't realized that they had pulled the ring gear and carrier.  It's not a big deal, I'm going to put my OX locker in and I knew I needed to change gears (this was a 3.54 or 3.73, I forget which, and I need 4.10).  But I had hoped to get the shims, both to have a starting point for the rebuild and just to have more shims to choose from.  Oh well, at least they left the bearing caps!  (and I hope they put them back correctly!)

After that I pulled the pinion out, knocked out the races for the pinion and pushed the axle seals out.  To get the seals I took a socket that was a close fit in the axle tube and used a piece of wood to push it through from the outside.  That not only pushed the seal out, it also broached most of the dirt and gunk out of the tubes.  Then I used engine degreaser and a hose to try to clean the tubes out even better.

So now I have the axle housing ready to build up!  Well, I still have to clean out the pumpkin.  And I can't start putting stuff in it until I get the OX out of my old axle.  But the housing is ready, and that seemed like enough of a milestone to be worth a report!

[Gary Lewis]

Yes, it looks quite bare in there!  

Glad you can work with that. But it is a milestone to get all set up, ready for the installation.

[mat in tn]

im not sure about the year axle or model number you have. but i know on the dana 44 high pinion there is a "carrier break" where the carrier is one part number for 3.73 and under and another for higher gears. i used a 4.10 in my bronco 2 build and had to consider that.

[Nothing Special]

True, but not an issue I need to deal with.  I'm using the OX locker from my low pinion Dana 44 which was ordered for the 4.10 gears, so I know it's on the right side of the carrier break for the 4.10 gears I'm putting back on it.

I didn't take it as a given that the diff from the low pinion 44 would work in the high pinion 44.  But "they" said it was the same diff (people on a Bronco forum talking about swapping to high pinion axles).  And I checked it with OX who confirmed it's the same diff and cover for both axles.


Edit to add:  And to answer the implied questions, I'm going from the stock '71 low pinion Dana 44 to a high pinion Dana 44 out of a '77 F-150.

[mat in tn]

I assume that you are lifting it also. normally done for more ground clearance

[Bruce moose4x4]

 Oh well, at least they left the bearing caps!  (and I hope they put them back correctly!)

Bob, on the Dana axle they stamped a letter  on the cap, and the same on the gasket surface beside the cap. One is usually laying down and the other standing up. They should match the ones on the gasket surface.

[Nothing Special]

I'm not lifting it now.  Before I bought it a previous owner put about a 3" suspension lift (2.5"?  3.5"?) on it and a 1" body lift.  With 33" tires it already higher than my wife wants (she said she'd be done 'wheeling with me if I put 35s on it!).  So it's staying at the height it is.

This project was mostly about improving the worst place I get hung up (getting rid of the dropped radius arm mounts.

That requires cutting off, rotating and rewelding the Cs to fix the caster.

If I was doing that I might as well also cut off the wedges and fix the pinion angle that's giving me front driveline vibration.

If I'm doing all of that it might as well be on a high pinion axle.

Oh, and now that the dropped radius arm mounts aren't hanging down below the transfer case I really needed to do something to raise and protect it.

"Snowball", aka "scope creep"

[Gary Lewis]

Man after my own heart!  My theme song: Might As Well.

[mat in tn]

that seems like a great plan. drop brackets bug me although not enough not to use them. but freeing up ground clearance and hang up points is smartnot everything that one needs to clear has a radius or is the same shape crawling over a "shelf" can require all the clearance one can get and often an angular aproach.

[Nothing Special]

Bruce moose4x4 wrote

Oh well, at least they left the bearing caps!  (and I hope they put them back correctly!)

Bob, on the Dana axle they stamped a letter  on the cap, and the same on the gasket surface beside the cap. One is usually laying down and the other standing up. They should match the ones on the gasket surface.

I'll look for that!

[Nothing Special]

It's getting time to get serious.  We've been going to the cabin and I've been helping my son a bit with his house project.  But now I have 2 1/2 weeks before we're going on a camping trip where we want to take the Bronco (not for any 'wheeling, just for transportation while the motorhome sits in camp).  I don't know if that will be possible, but I'm going to make an effort.

Over the past few weeks I've putzed a bit, continuing to clean up the housing, and making some tools to install and remove the pinion bearings and races (I already have them for the carrier).

Today I finished cleaning up the housing.  I was seeing a lot of bright metal flecks in it, so something in there was pretty unhealthy at one point.  But the only issue for me is I need to get the flecks out.  I'm not using anything but the housing from that axle.

Next step was checking the caps for markings.  I did find two sets on markings, one was likely the original Dana markings and the other likely put on by someone disassembling the axle.  Fortunately they both match!  One of the caps had been thrown on backward, but as there was no carrier in it I'm sure that's not an issue.

Then I installed the new ring gear on the OX locker.  The gear didn't want to drop over the pilot on the diff, so I played a propane torch on the back side of the gear until it was just hot enough to be hard to hold my hand on (likely about 150 F from past experience).  Then it slid on fine.

I had to "get a little crafty on it" to figure out how to hold the diff / ring gear while I torqued the ring gear bolts to 55 lb-ft.  But a piece of flat stock held in the vice, sitting on the diff and wedged betweem a couple of ring gear bolts worked quite nicely.


Next I dropped the diff into the housing.  And yes, it dropped in.  I'm starting with the same shims I had to get the correct carrier preload in the original housing, but I need more with this housing.  Oh well, that would've been too much to hope for.

The point in putting the diff in now was to see in the OX cover would go on all the way.  When I first installed it in the original axle one end of the shift fork hit the housing before the cover was seated.  I was able to cut away a bit of the fork to make it fit, but I thought I'd make sure it fit on this housing while it was empty, so if I had to do any cutting or grinding I wouldn't risk contaminating anything.  But it fit, so I'm good there.

That's about all I can do now until I get back to work on Wednesday to borrow some tools.  The next step is to set up the gears.  I need to get that done within the next about 5 days to have any chance of meeting the current deadline.  Tomorrow I'll work on the motorhome some and get ball joints and brake parts ordered for after the diff is done.

[Gary Lewis]

Here's  that you make it, Bob.  But I'll bet that you will.  

And it looks like things are going well at this stage.  Hopefully that will continue as you set the gears up.  And I hope that the parts you need are in stock.

GOOD LUCK!

[Nothing Special]

Well, the odds are getting a little longer on your bet.  If things go really well in the next two days I'll be OK, but I'm falling behind a fair bit right now.

I had hoped to get the pinion shaft in last night, but I couldn't press the inner bearing on with the tools I have available at home, so that didn't happen.  I brought it to work and pressed it on with a big ol' arbor press, so that was solved.

So then I was hoping to get the pinion in tonight, and hopefully get the carrier in for the first pattern.  But I couldn't get the outer pinion bearing on.  That's a lot more disturbing because everything I find (including the pinion shaft and bearing that came out of this axle) says that it's supposed to be a slip fit.  If it is pressed on it would have to pressed into place by the pinion shaft nut, and that seems incredibly wrong.  And then you'd need to get it off by hammering the pinion shaft in with this bearing being pushed back off by its race.  That's even worse.  So I'm sure that what happened was that the pinion shaft missed its finish cut for this diameter.  And the new bearing slips over the old shaft, so I know it's not the bearing.

I'd happily return it and get a good one, but I need this diff put together in about two days, and there's no way that can happen with anything other than the parts I have.  So I think I'm going to bring the shaft and bearing to work tomorrow and see if I can make them fit using a lathe.  Not happy about that, but it's about my only chance at this point.

On the plus side, I did get all of the parts I think I need.  So whenever I get the diff put together I should have everything else I need to get it all done.

[Gary Lewis]

Bummer!!!!

How are you going to chuck that thing in the lathe?  You have to cut right up to the threads, so...  Is there a centering divot on the gear end so you can chuck it up on the threads and use a live center on the rear?

[Nothing Special]

I haven't figured that out yet.  If I can't I'll do the next best thing and open up the bearing ID so it slides on.  It looks like I'll have enough purchase on the inner race to be able to collet it well.  Tat's how I made setup bearings when I installed the OX a few years ago.  I'd rather make the shaft right, but as long as they go together in the end, I'll take the win.

[Gary Lewis]

I think opening up the bearing may be the way to go in the short term.  How much interference do you have?

[Nothing Special]

I don't have an incredibly accurate way to measure them at home, especially an ID.  My caliper says the new shaft is 1.x28" (going from memory, I only remember the "28", I think it was 1.128", but I'm not sure) while the old shaft is 1.x25".  The new and old bearing are both close slip fits over the old shaft.  So about a .002" - .003" press fit.

But I have a new plan after sleeping on it.  I'm not feeling great about my ability to get either the shaft or bearing mounted in the lathe with NO runout, and I don't want to induce errors here based on bad parts i bought.  And I realized that I don't need these parts at all for the trip in two weeks.  We aren't going 'wheeling, I don't need 4WD.  I can put the axle together with no ring and pinion, no diff, no axle shafts and it'll work just fine in rear wheel drive.  I'll need to tape up some holes to keep debris and water out of the axle and especially the wheel bearings.  But that'll give me time to get a new ring and pinion.

So we'll see how well the complaint / return process works.

[Gary Lewis]

I like this approach MUCH better!  Not only does it put the burden back on those that caused the problem, it makes it easy to support at a later date.  Plus, it cuts your workload down dramatically.