Fullwidth swap delays. Stuck drums. Stuck EVERYTHING.

[Lucas]

I spent EIGHT hours yesterday tearing apart my HP44. These axles were apparently sitting in a field somewhere for the past 20 years so every nut,bolt,plate,etc. that could be rusted or siezed was. Very Very tightly. I was hoping to reuse some parts but as of right now I need:
New balljoints~$100
New drums~$60
New shoes~$15
New Shaft joints (760x)- $50
New 1310/1330 conversion joints~$75

Everyone said the nickle and dime costs would be killer, and I believe them!


The rear drums are really pissin' me off. 9" drums are really thin around the shaft, so when they rust on they do so completely. I've wailed at the drum and shaft for hours with lots of heat and PB blaster. No luck. Not even a crack in the rust around the shaft/drum.
The guys at PORC said it was their standard procedure to plasma off most of the drum to get to the retainer plates. That is what I will be doing tomorrow.
First im going to try welding a length of chain to the drum on each side of the shaft, then use a slide hammer. Hopefully the force so close to the seizure will pop it loose.

Oh yeah, OEM pass side Ford hub lockouts can blow me.

[mxjeepin]

what are tyhese going in? are you using a radius arm set up or some sort?
when i did mine i replaced everything but the housing itself. makes life easier knowing you have brand new parts in there.

[Lucas]

Going in my XJ and yea I am keeping the Ford radius arm setup.
At this point the only original parts I'm going to be using are the housings (&3d member), radius arms, knuckles and brakeparts. The rest of it is fubar.

[mxjeepin]

i ahve hit the flange of the shaft where the hole in the drum is to try and jolt it lose. yeah i think im going to keep my radius arm set and just wrist the radius arm. any input?

[Lucas]

The axles aren't anywhere near the jeep right now so I don't have any input yet. What I'm going to try to do is mock it up underneath the jeep based on the compressed length of the coils and first try to get the pinion angle right. Then I'll extend the radius arms out to however far they need to go before mounting to a new crossmember, and last I'll cut and turn the knuckles (gonna be a BIATCH) for proper caster.

Just gotta figure out steering. I'm thinking about using the factory TB mount and going inverted T with Chevy TREs. What are you doing?.

[Vetteboy]

Originally posted by Lucas:
Just gotta figure out steering. I'm thinking about using the factory TB mount and going inverted T with Chevy TREs. What are you doing?. Still gotta ream it out for that...but you've probably got the ream on standby. graemlins/laughing.gif

[mxjeepin]

to run chevy tre's you only need to ream your pitman arm. i just got done doing mine. i used the stock trac bar mount on my set up. yeah i might also rotate my knuckles because all my crossmember/radius arm mounts hang low right now.

[Vetteboy]

On the 78 bronco HP44 I put 8-lug chevy suburban outers and tie rod on, I had to ream the knuckles out.

graemlins/iono.gif

[mxjeepin]

maybe i got lucky? haha i dont know. i need to buy a reamer though. know where i can get one?

[Vetteboy]

It's a 1.5"/12" reamer (taper is 1.5" per 12"), and McMaster-Carr sells a buttload of tapered reamers (www.mcmaster.com), but they're listed by starting and ending diameter and I don't feel like calculating that right now.

[h_2_o]

Lucas: instead of going drums on it again, why not get some crown vic disks from a u-pull it yard and go that route. seems like it would end up being a similar cost and you get the bonus of having disks.

[mxjeepin]

thought the crown vic brakes would only work on a d44, he is putting a 9" in the rear. will they work? i ahve weld on mounts right now and they kind of scare me so i would like a nice bolt on set-up with an e-brake.

[Lucas]

I am quickly running out of TIME, so I don't want to take on a disk conversion right now. New shoes are 11 bucks.