[Mouse]

Are you keeping the axles full width?

 

[rlenglish]

Your wife's jeep has Tera axles so why are you building your own? Are you happy with her axles? Any reason for 14b and st?

 

[rlenglish]

Phase 4 must be the Hemi/Ls/Boost phase?

 

[Blue Baby Sound]

Your wife's jeep has Tera axles so why are you building your own? Are you happy with her axles? Any reason for 14b and st?

Her Teraflex 44/60 combo has been great and is "almost" perfect for her rig. Although I wish it was full float.

Cons for her combo:

• Same D44 ball joints and unit bearings as a stock axle
• Not full float
• Not wide enough for a 40x13.5 tire without crazy low backspace

A TF front 60 is 10k. For that same money (or less) I can build a junkyard front AND rear that's stronger.
So I'd say cost is the the biggest factor for us building instead of buying.

Our '14 is admittedly oversized for a DD, and we really want it to be as stout as we can afford. Our kids (and soon grandkids) drive it on our overlanding trips so I want to make sure it's easy for them to overcome obstacles and stout enough to withstand a few stupid moves (which usually happen when I take it rock crawling).

So right or wrong that's our logic.

 

[Blue Baby Sound]

Phase 4 must be the Hemi/Ls/Boost phase?

When the 3.6 dies I can totally see a LS in our future
This Jeep isn't going anywhere, too much sentimental value. But that new 392 JL sure flips my trigger!

 

[Blue Baby Sound]

Are you keeping the axles full width?

Sorry, I missed this question.
Yes, I currently run a 40x13.5 wide tire with 4.5" backspace. I have my steering bolts maxed out and 2" spacers but It still rubs, bad. So my hopes are that with the wider axles I can run around 4.5" BS and keep my scrub radius better than it is now.

 

[Norminator]

Very nice. I was going to keep my 84 CJ until they changed the smog law in CA.

 

[Blue Baby Sound]

Next step is to clean and prep for welding the front, then it's time to start the rear. At that point the "cheap" stuff is done and I start saving $$ for steering, gears, lockers, wheels, control arms, etc.
Still shooting for October completion
Did a quick Photoshop on the design I'm going for.

 

[johncanfield]

Crowbar, punch and large hammer

 

[Blue Baby Sound]

Crowbar, punch and large hammer

It's really the only tools you need in the toolbox...

 

[Blue Baby Sound]

Picked up a 2001 rear 14 bolt last week, got it cut and ready to prep for welding. Had a couple of bad cuts on the rear, not terrible but I might fill them in once we fire up the welder.

Still have to make the 2" cut out of the front housing then it's ready to prep and weld.

Slow and steady wins the race

 

[Mouse]

Nice find on the 14 bolt (disk brakes and parking brake) . What are you doing to the front axle?

 

[Blue Baby Sound]

The front I still need to finish cutting the casting like shown in the pic below.
I've trimmed all but the 2" of casting around the tube, would like to find a band saw for it but no luck so far. And I don't want to buy one just for that cut.

 

[Blue Baby Sound]

Finished up all the cutting and grinding.
Waiting on the quote for sand/media blasting and for the wheel powder coat.

 

[Blue Baby Sound]

Today was the last of the cutting, trimmed up the C.
Dropping the axles off in a few days to get sand blasted, they'll powder coat the wheels there too.

For those that have never torn down a D60 or 14 bolt (like me) here are a couple of pictures of the pinion size (3.73)

 

[johncanfield]

I never got to see the gears in my rear D60 - big hunk of steel. Speaking of a big hunk, that's a bunch of steel you whacked off the "C".

 

[Blue Baby Sound]

I never got to see the gears in my rear D60 - big hunk of steel. Speaking of a big hunk, that's a bunch of steel you whacked off the "C".

I had hoped to not cut it, but apparently if you run coils/shocks that section will rub the coil.
Artec didn't give any specifics on how much to cut, but Barnes provided measurements on their truss instructions.

 

[hutchman]

Just wondering if you have a youtube channel? I've seen one with a Jeep very similar to yours in Ozark Nat Forrest.

 

[Blue Baby Sound]

Just wondering if you have a youtube channel? I've seen one with a Jeep very similar to yours in Ozark Nat Forrest.

I have one with a few ONF videos, but it's mainly for me to document stuff, not something I promote.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCu_qBDTfbt95x70tPqmETQg/videos

It's a hodge-podge of Jeep stuff, church stuff and band stuff. The last 35 years my hobby has been music (playing drums), but NYE this year was my retirement from that (mostly)

So if you like cheesy 80's hard rock you can check out some of those videos LOL

 

[hutchman]

Kool! I will have a look!