Well I followed the instructions in the gearing thread to the letter… or so I thought


I am pretty good with mechanics, and have rebuilt a few engines and have done more than a few trailer axles.
I bought my gears from Dave at Northridge. I had 3.21 gears and got a new front carrier and 4.88 Yukon gears with overhaul kits.

The trouble started out when I went to install my old spider gears in my new front carrier, they were a bitch to get in. I called Dave and he helped me out.
From there everything went fairly normally. I had to pop the carrier and ring gear out a number of times to get the backlash right. The pinion had a good pattern with the stock shim.
I put in a new crush washer and tightened down the pinion. It ended up being a tad too tight, but I thought it would be ok. (And I figured if it was too tight I could just pop new bearings in when I get a aussie locker in the next year or so)

I rechecked the backlash and it was good as well as the wear pattern. So I buttoned everything up, but left the drive shaft disconnected. I was ready to do the rear axle. I needed to back the jeep out of the garage and flip it around so the rear would be pointing towards my work bench.

I backed out just fine, but when I pit it in first the jeep went a few feet then bucked and screeched to a halt with a loud clunk! I managed to get it back in the garage by going forward a foot at a time, just until it would lock up. Then backed over my lawn and into the garage (and no nasty hand grenade noises from my front axle while backing up)

The pix of the damage are below. The wear pattern looks different then when I checked it. The pinion was obviously loose and had lots of play in it.

What the F&@$ happened! As it sits I need new everything for my D30 and am too pissed to do it all myself again. I just became debt free, but want to take it to someone and put it on a credit card!
Is there any way I can get this to a point where I can drive it 100 miles to Dave at Northridge? Like putting it back together without the spider gears, or does it need to be trailered?

… Now I am going to man cry and have a beer or 6… Feel free to laugh

 

Wow, Sorry to hear this bro! I'm glad when I did my 4.88's I dropped it off to the offroad shop!

Hope you get it figured out. And get her back in action.

 

Thought I had pretty good karma and mechanical skills.
I should have known how this was going to go down when I hit my finger and got a subungual hematoma. Have not have to fix one of those on myself before!

4 beers since the shit hit the fan and counting!
Going to have to get my motorcycle running so I can go to work on monday... Hope it does not rain...

 

Sorry that happened to you man. That has got to suck big time. Keep your head up and give Dave a call. He will lead you in the right direction. Probably gonna have to trailer that thing to be on the safe side.

 

Do you think it was the issue you were having installing the spider gears in the new carrier? Looks like you left a wrench in there. Not trying to be funny, that's just what it looks like. I'm getting ready to tackle this exact same job. 3.21's to 4.88's. I was feeling pretty confident. should have stopped reading up on it 10 mintes ago. Oh well. Paying someone to do it isn't in the budget. Keep us posted. Good luck.

 

I may have a D30 carrier If you need it. I don't know what shipping would be. But it's yours for the asking

Sent from my Nexus One using Tapatalk

 

That's a drag. You are good to go pulling the carrier and axles and driving it up to David. I've been in 2 wheel drive as described for some time, > 3000 miles, waiting on my Pro-Rock to come in.

 

The spider gears were funky. The top and bottom gears with the cup shaped thrust washers were hard to get in. I would say get new ones with your carrier (Yukon sells everything on their site, or get it all from Dave) Then install it all with the ring gear at least a week before your install, to avoid frustration.
Also I guess we need to use a TJ D30 carrier. That is what he sold me.

As far as paying someone. I am a die hard DIY guy I used to be a medic, then a civvy trailer mechanic/fabricator (went from $22hr to 12hr since the recession. Now working security) so I do everything myself. I have built high compression high revving engines with stand alone EMS (Megasquirt) But it was the gears that broke me. Even while following directions!
Started with the Dave Ramsey debt snowball a year ago... Going to have to go back. Unless I can trade Dave something for his time

6 beers since the shit hit the fan and my jeep broke me... and counting... no man tears yet... maybe

 

Looks like the pinion was not tight enough and hit the carrier. Get your Jeep up here and I will do it for you for as cheap as possible to help you out.

David

 

Dave this is why we all love you....