Hmm...

A bit of background: I'm taking a Warn floating hub conversion out of my D35 and putting regular chromoly axle shafts back in. I've taken out the Warn stuff and I have the new shafts. The new shafts came with seals, bearings, and c-clips. If you're guessing I've never done this before you'd be right! I'm a little over my head, but I just need some direction.

First off, I don't know if I have all the parts I need. Second, the new shafts have a ABS tone rings on them, which I don't need. Third, the bearings aren't what I was expecting. I'm not sure what to do with them.

So I need some help. Here's a bunch of pictures that show where I'm at. Hopefully, that's enough for some nice person to tell me what I need to do.

I have the brakes and all the Warn stuff off of the axle tubes. This is where I'm at right now.


BTW, I have stock drums to replace the machined drums I was using with the Warn stuff.

I'm not sure what this is or if I still need it. It was between the brakes and the axle tube. Is it a bearing plate? Retainer plate? I'm not sure if it's stock or if it's part of the Warn setup.


This is one of the new shafts with the ABS tone ring preinstalled. Must have been pressed on cause it's on there pretty good. I don't have ABS on my TJ.



This one of the bearings. It's not what I was expecting. It's closed on both sides and it doesn't seem like you can pack it with grease. Each picture below is of each side to show that it's closed on either end.



This is the seal.



I can see already that I'll have to replace the ten bolts/nuts to secure everything to the tube. Is there anything else I'm missing?

I guess the big questions I have are:

1. Am I missing anything?
2. In what order does all this crap go back in?
3. Do I still need that plate?
4. Do those bearings need to be packed and/or pressed in?
5. Are the tone rings supposed to come out?

Is the c-clip really the only think holding in the axle shafts?

 

Hey there smellhole, (It feels like I'm insulting you by writing that even though it's your name ) the first thing I would do if I were you, is buy a repair manual .
Or call the folks that you bought the axles from and see if they can e-mail you either an instruction sheet or some kind of a parts scematic
that shows how the rear end is supposed to be pieced together.

I never owned a Jeep before now, and my TJ is new, so I'm not gonna have all of the answers you're gonna need, because
I haven't had to take my axles apart yet. But I can answer a couple of things for you though.

1. Unless there's another seal behind that rag you have in the axle tube, the bearings are most likely lubed with the
gear lube from within the axle housing. Which is why it is very important to keep the axle's gear lube at the proper level.

2. I must admit that, like you, I didn't expect to see this style of bearing in there. If the axle shaft itself acts as the
inner bearing race, you're going to have to make sure that the new shafts and the old bearings fit well with each other,
and are not too tight or too loose. Otherwise you will have to replace the bearings as well.

3. The tone ring...another reason to call the folks that you got the axles from.
They may have sent you the wrong shafts.
I would ask them if the axles are interchangable between ABS and non-ABS set ups. They might say yes, and that you can
leave the tone rings on there and it won't matter. But if they must be removed, you should be able to get them off
by heating the ring up a bit with a torch and then coax them off by useing a couple of prybars.

Sorry...But that's the best I can do for you at this time. Maybe someone else will come through with some more info.
I'm gonna look into in though and see what else I can find out for ya. Because
guaranteed, I'm gonna need to know this for myself someday as well.

PS: Just a little advice...When you do a job like this just take one side completly apart at a time, that way,
if for some reason you can't remember how something is supposed to go back together, you will always have the other side to fall back on.
Although since in this case, you're completly changing the set up, that theory doesn't exactly hold true.
It's still a good practice though.

 

Hey, thanks for the post. It'll be useful.

I think I have this all figured out now, though I'm still not 100% sure about those plates. I'll just have to see what it looks like with and without.

I've also discovered that the side gears I have don't work with c-clip axles - no recess for the c-clips. I looked around locally for a spider gear set, but no luck, so I bit the bullet and ordered a powertrax no-slip locker. It'll be here Thu.

The next problem will be the brakes. They sort of came apart on me and I don't know how to put them back together. Man, I hate drum brakes.