UPDATES at the bottom of this page
It's time to start gathering the hardware for performing a solid axle swap on the Xterra.
The 1st gen Xterra comes with Independent Front Suspension (IFS) and suspension upgrade options are very limited, with only a maximum 3 inch suspension lift available without some serious & costly fabrication.
I picked up a '79 D44 Bronco axle I bought a couple of weeks ago. The axle was cheap, but it's in rough shape.
So a quick wash to take off the layers and years of mud and crap, and I cut off the broken parts and started to drain the oil.
The tag tells the story....
3.50 D9TA UC
610088-7 LS
Ford ID: D9TA-3002-UC (Dana # 610088-7) 3.50-1 / LIMITED SLIP (From 11/1/78 to 4/2/79)
Dana 44 HP
WMS 66"
BOM 610088-7
3.50 gear ratio
flat top knuckles
From a 79 FS Bronco
And this is what 35 years of Nova Scotia salty winters does to a vehicle
Whilst on a work trip to Orlando, I took the opportunity to get an OEM 25072 spindle tool from Auto Zone.
I
was holding off buying the parts to get the axle fixed up until I got a
set of radius arms sourced since the C mounts on my axle are cast,
which makes things a little awkward.
I
came home from my trip to some good news about a set of OEM radius arms
for sale. The seller was having trouble removing the 36 year old
bolts.....well he did it!! :) Now I've got myself a $40 set of stock
radius arms and mounting brackets :)
Depending on condition, I'll probably just use them stock, and maybe extend them at some point.
Now to tear into that broken hub.....
Started tearing down the hubs to get to the u-joints, and I've ht a snag.
I've removed;
internal snap ring
axle shaft snap ring
the pressure spring
But the axle shaft sleeve wont come out
Worked out how to get the stuck axle
shaft sleeve out - the hub was slightly bent and had a flat spot on the
lip which was preventing the mechanism from sliding out.
Hubs are off, now to get the hub carrier off.
Surprisingly these bolts came right off after loosening with my long torque wrench.
These are stuck on pretty badly despite pounding on them - I've got them soaking in Liquid Wrench....
What do you know....Liquid Wrench + wood + BFH = spindles off :)
U-joint on the short shaft is frozen solid!
Steering knuckles are off, and the upper and lower ball joints are out :)
The nuts holding the ball joints on were really hard to get off with just a propane torch ESPECIALLY since the axle is free floating. One of the nuts free'd up and sent my 250lb ass flying across the garage like superman on acid...I'm temporarily sprained and bleeding, but I got the nuts off LOL.
I also found this link which has given me some new found inspiration :)
http://www.therangerstation.com/tech_library/dana44overview.shtml
U-Joints
BFH wins for the short axle and I've got the u-joints off.
The long side looks like the u-joint caps are welded to the ears - my BFH isn't wining, but I guess I'll need to swinger harder LOL
This is how bad the long side is
So, I've stripped down the axle housing of all of it's components and
it turns out the axles are done - just too much corrosion on the ears
to be worth using.
I've had major problems sourcing new axles
from Ford - the dealers I've called have been unable to lookup the part
numbers for anything before 1980 as it's on microfiche.
I
even had a web-chat with Ford and they've pointed me in the direction of
a specialist. My hope is if I can get the part numbers then the dealers
can order them.
I'll keep trying, but there's going to be a
point where I'll HAVE to order some from the Rock Auto, and they ain't
cheap!! BUT, the upside is, it'll be a 4340 Chrome-Moly Axle Kit.
Here is the axle housing all stripped down and ready to be cleaned up and painted.
Anyways.....this is exciting, and quite honestly freaking scary as **** !!!
Washed, scraped & wire-brushed the housing of rust and oil, and gave it a nice coat of rust paint.
Need to do the same to the steering knuckles next ;)
Steering knuckles are finished.
I was going to move on to the radius arms, then I saw one of the arms was bent.
Big order of parts came in today
1st part installed....small steps LOL
Still knocking the surface rust and crud off the old parts
More rust cleaning and painting....
And to my next decision / problem - corroded radius arm studs.
OEM axle shafts with u-joints and slingers from The Bronco Graveyeard came in today, and very nice they look too :)
Interestingly, the short shafts have an extra groove machined into the splines. I'm hoping that's not gonna cause a problem.
Got the ball joints installed and steering knuckles fitted - she's starting to look like an axle now ! :)
Stripped out the old spindle bearings. I don't have a nice fancy slide hammer bearing puller, so I used a 2-finger puller with my pickle fork and a BFG to get the spindle bearing out. The bearings got destroyed in the process, but I wasn't going to re-use them.
Removed and inspected the inner and outer axle bearings, and cleaned and packed with grease. The axle bearing seals were no good either.
I've ordered new spindle bearings, spindle seals, and axle seals.
Also fitted the tie rods and drag link.
Hub seals came in today.
Clearly some poor soul had them before me and needed to return them, as the boxes were greasy and opened.
I
was going to fit the seals too, but I found my previous attempt at packing the
bearings with grease was a complete failure. It seems I didn't get all of the gas out of the bearings, and the grease was just a runny mush in the bottom
of the tub that I had left them in.
Oh well, you live and learn LOL
I cleaned them up and I'm waiting for them to dry properly this time before I re-pack them :)
Spindle bearings (INA SCE 2110), bearing seal (36361) and outer axleshaft seal (38128) came in from fleebay.
New on left, old on right - interestingly the new bearings are the same size, but have a cage over roller bearings, where the old ones didn't.
I think I have everything to put this axle back together again now :)
Checked the new outer spindle bearing seal against the one that came off the axle, and I initially thought I'd been sent the wrong seal. On checking the original seal part number (Spicer 38128) it seems the part is correct, and the original is worn down so much that it looks completely different.
Picked up a cheap set of very well used 5 x Wildcat Ext LT 33's with decent tread on 4 bronco rims. They're a little weather cracked, but nothing worse than the scars and rips in my current tires.
Rotors installed, studs fitted bearings packed,locking hubs cleaned, adjusting nut installed :)
All I need now is 2 rubber o rings and some allen bolts because all of them are rounded off or were snapped.
I could also use 2 new end caps because they are also very beaten up.
And I also need some wheel nuts too.
Weirdly, the axle looked HUGE on the axle stands, until I threw those 33's on...now it looks tiny LOL
