Hello!
I understand that we don't own a JK.. We have an XJ with Rubi axles installed and we have a problems with them. The tyres we are running are 36x12.5 Simex Extreme Trekker 2

Axles were bought new and re-geared to the 4.88. We also replaced the stock yokes to the TeraFlex Front and Rear Axles Yoke U-Bolts.

Everything was fine during the first trips (we have a lot of mud and swamps here. no rocks at all) but on the way back from the last event we heard strange noise from the rear axle. A brief inspection showed that there is a failure with a pinion nut. Looks like that the nut got unscrewed somehow. I think that the axles done about 1000 miles.

Service station told us that a small amount of water came into the axle that caused the pinion bearing failure and that is why the pinion nut unscrewed. The color of the oil in the axle was dark grey (not brown). The only visible deformation is on the first bearing which is closer to the drive shaft which is on the inner side of the outer bearing cover. I can hardly understand this reason. Can you give is advise what should we check now ? What can cause the pinion nut failure ?

Also we have a problem with a front hub bearing. We can replace it with a new Mopar hub bearing but is there any heavy duty option for the replacement ? Is this failure common after such small mileage ?

Sorry for my English. It is a little bit hard to explain such technical details.

 

spyntec makes a lock out hub for the front but they are expensive and you will need new wheels in a 5c5.5 bolt pattern.
I would bet the rear pinion nut was not torqued correctly, not sure how water would cause a nut that is 160ft/lbs to loosen up. Water is not a lubricant.

If you wheel hard I would also look at some cromoly shafts for the rear as they tend to break at the splines pretty easy with 37" tires.

 

I agree with TheDirtman about the pinion nut not being torqued correctly.
Almost all people who regear, or just replace the seal, don't correctly set the preload during assembly. They torque to 160 ft/lbs and leave it at that.

There is no better option that I know of for the front hub unit bearing. As far as I know, all brands of JK hubs are made by the same factory, (Iljin).

 

Thank you for the respond! Does anyone have a manual about rear axle assemble procedure? I will show it to the service station and ask to check if they assembled it in the proper way now.

So you think that it is OK to just replace the hub bearing for the original one?

I don't know what means to wheel hard. We try not to do it. http://my.mail.ru/video/mail/arvadim...l/arvadim/1/17 (after AD will be video) this is an example what we get here.

We thought that if we will break shaft - we will replace it otherwise we will stay on stock.

 

Go to a dealer and have them print off the differential set-up procedures from their technical manual.

You can replace the hub with one from MOPAR, but you may find they are less expensive from another source.

Your hub in the new axle should not have failed so soon.
It must have taken an impact, or water got into it. Was the ABS sensor properly installed?

 

We don't have the ABS on the 93 XJ. So the ABS sensor was removed from the hub. I think that the reason of the failure is a workmanship assembly (took this word from the dictionary. hope that is the right one).

 

If the hub was supposed to have an ABS sensor on it, and you removed the sensor, it left a hole in the hub housing that would allow water and/or dirt to get into the bearings, which would certainly lead to early failure.

 

I will talk to the service station. Thanks for the info.