Project: Custom 71 4x4 hotrod

[silver7]

The rest of frame/chassis parts are at Unique Coatings. Everything but my steering knuckles and U bolt brackets will get Prismatic Speedway Black. The others will be red.

Started rebuilding my rear end when I discovered Strange Engineering sent me the car kit not the truck kit. Went with Strange because they advertised only using Timken bearings. I was surprised when I received National bearings which I was told is a company Timken bought. At least it is a US company. . . Waiting on the correct set now.

I wasn't ready to start my Dana 44 yet because I don't have set-up bearings yet. My Motive Gear rebuilt kit came with Timken bearings so I need to find two more new Timken carrier bearings (#25590) to help me set-up my backlash without damaging my bearings pressing them on and taking them off multiple times. Looking for a new set now so I can complete this before my correct 12 bolt kit arrives.

[VA72C10]

cool. looking forward to seeing it all come back together (as I'm sure you are )

[silver7]

Ya man. We just had a baby girl a month ago, and I'm helping coach my 8 yr old son's All-Star baseball team right now so time is a little scarse these days. But it is real close to some serious progress. . .

[Dieselwrencher]

Congrats on having your daughter!

[silver7]

Thanks Diesel - she is a sweet girl. I find it tough to step away and go work on the truck. Having said that, I have been chopping wood - slowly but surely.

My 12 bolt truck kit arrived from Strange Engineering so I put my posi differential together. Thought I was SOL when I went to put my ring gear on the carrier and it didn't fit. After double checking to ensure I did not have a 4 series carrier, and making sure I had the right part from Summit Racing, I checked my old ring gear and discovered it had the same inside diameter. After popping the carrier in the freezer for about 20 minutes the ring gear popped right on. Now I need my yolk back from the powder coater so I can set my back lash and pinion depth.

On the Dana 44 I didn't want to deal with removing the press fit carrier bearings so I could set my back lash multiple times. I was surprised to find my new Timken set-up bearings at Amazon.com. Can you believe that? Amazon has them but the local big name bearing warehouse does not. The sign of the times I guess . . .still seems crazy to me. They arrived last week so I ground the inside diameter down enough to where I have a press fit. Now I need to set the back lash and pinion depth.

[silver7]

Bought my rear drum-to-disc conversion kit from 'tomsclassics' on ebay. The guy was great. I wanted a 6 lug kit with drilled/slotted rotors and e-brake, but since he did not have my rotors he created a kit for me minus the rotors. $299 was a good deal and the parts look to be of very good quality. For about $450 I'll have everything I need with the drilled/slotted rotors. He told me he uses 88-91 chevy K1500 front rotors for his regular rear conversion kit.

[msgross]

nice

[silver7]

Just picked up my 90 miscellaneous parts from 'Unique Coatings' today. Everything had two coats (base and clear) and looked fantastic! The red parts were a little brighter than I hoped ('fire engine red' instead of 'rio red') but the powder flowed out well and had nice depth and high gloss.

My son's All-star baseball went late tonight and we have a double-header tomorrow night, but I should be able to do some work this weekend. Can't wait!!

[Dieselwrencher]

It's sounding like it's coming along nicely!

[cheepin]

Originally Posted by brossow

I must be missing something. I'll trust you on this for your setup. The more I think about it, essentially what you've done is created a sort of combined trailing arm and leaf spring suspension in one. Sorta.

As for my Caltracs, I'm not preventing fore-aft movement. That's not what a good traction control system does. My goal is the same as what you called it but not what you described: preventing spring (axle) wrap, which isn't fore-aft movement at all but rotation of the axle in place, causing the leaf springs to "wrap" into an S shape. During normal driving the axle still needs to be able to move forward and backward as I described previously and hence the need for the front pivot. Under hard acceleration, however, if the axle tries to rotate forward, the Caltracs prevent this rotation.

But like I said, I'm not an engineer and maybe I'm missing something. I'll leave it at that and hope it perfectly works for you. Sometimes I overthink things.

Cheers,
Brent

Your not missing anything and are correct.In this setup the spring will not be able to articulate.The traction bar will keep it from doing so.
Here's a much better design.Notice it has 2 mounting points are the axle.And a shackle at the frame.This keeps the axle from rotating and lets the springs move.

[silver7]

Finished building my 12 bolt (set to a backlash of 0.010" as shown on my Richmond pinion gear and 0.039" pinion shim) and I am also about 1/2 way complete on my Dana 44. I might shift to cleaning my rear axles and assembling my leaf springs together this weekend so I can start getting this thing back together.

The 'old' 3.08 and 'new' 4.56 ratio pinions side-by-side really highlight the significant gear change made to better support the 383 stroker.

I had to use the stove (bearing) and freezer (pinion) on more than one occasion to get the pinion bearings to fit over the pinion shaft.

[VA72C10]

nice progress.....leggo my eggo....

[silver7]

The Dana is a lot more work because the pinion shims go under the race inside the housing. PTA to change and is taking a lot of changes to find the correct depth. I'm up to 0.070" and I'm not there yet.

But I was able to get from front springs back together and discovered I still have a few small forgotten parts which need powdercoating.

Slowly, but surely it is getting done.

[msgross]

hate to see your PC bill... yikes.

[silver7]

Near $1K so far, but it does look fantastic - especially when the sunlight hits it.

Imagine what it would have been had I powder coated the frame as well. . .double yikes.

[Dieselwrencher]

It's almost a toss up anymore. PC can be expensive, but if you buy high quality paint, that isn't cheap either. I like PC but I never have anything done done to get it PC'd.

[silver7]

These rebuild kits from Motive Gear are terrible. Although I like the fact the bearings are Timken, I keep running out of shims for the Dana and the 12 bolt kit. I already had to buy an additional kit from Randy's Ring and Pinion and I may have to buy another.

[silver7]

As usual, I ran into a couple of snags with the 12 bolt and the Dana 44. I had just gotten my contact pattern for the 12 bolt correct and was trying to crush my 'crush collar' to the recommended 20-25 in/lbs and ended up stripping my pinion nut. Luckily I was able to remove the nut, but I'm waiting on a replacement to come in the mail. After asking around it seems this happens more often than you would expect. Apparently new crush collars are a bear to crush to the proper load so a lot of guys choose to use old ones and just tighten them more than they were before.

As if a stripped pinion nut wasn't enough to chap my ass I discovered after numerous trial and errors and finally calling Richmond that when you go to a 4.56 ratio on a Dana 44 you have to change to a 4 series carrier. Explains why I was at a 0.070" pinion depth, and all my carrier shims on one side and still couldn't get the correct backlash and contact pattern. I found a new 4 series carrier online for $55 and received it yesterday. I got my backlash correct and I'm on my 2nd pinion depth setting and will run the contact pattern tomorrow.

[msgross]

I thought that they made special 4.56 gears for the 3 series carrier as well... You should have just picked up a set of CUCV axles and been done...

[silver7]

I thought so too. Maybe I ordered the wrong part from Summit. . .Hey, you live and learn. That's what makes doing it yourself so fun. It fits like a glove now.

[70 beast]

yah i read about "thick cut" gears that way you can reuse your original carrier.

no matter how much i read about doing your own gears i know somehow itll turn out more than intended so thats why im waiting for either a dana 60 (from a cucv) or a NAPCO front (wish me luck haha)

[silver7]

I'm pretty sure I ordered the thick set of gears but somehow I ended up with the 4 series gear. I didn't even bother finding my summit paperwork to see because I had already lightly sanded on the pinion shaft (see pic above with it in freezer) in order to get the pinion bearing to slide over the pinion. It was mine now.

Good news is tonight while the hamburger helper was cooking I got my backlash and contact pattern correct for my Dana 44. Now all I need to do is grease the spider gears, switch from the set-up bearings, set the preload on the pinion and carrier bearings, then put it back together.

My front and rear Summit Racing drilled and slotted rotors came in the mail Saturday. I can't wait to get them installed.

Good luck 70 beast. This was my first time setting up my own differential. Although it was easier than expected I made a couple of silly mistakes so it took much longer than I thought it would take. It is hard to put a value on the experience I've gained but I certainly understand if someone would rather not mess with it. Sometimes time is more valuable.

[my67chevytruck]

Nice work Shawn!

[silver7]

Thanks Heath. Hey, what color is that blue on your 56 Apache? Looks great. I'm still on the fence as far as what color I'm going to go with. I'm thinking a light silver like your son's 67, a lighter blue possibly a classic chevelle blue or a satin black.

[silver7]

Struggled with installing the LMC ball joints on the steering knuckles with the rental install kit I bought from Autozone. I installed one but didn't feel comfortable doing the rest without damaging the recent powder coat so I took them to Ronny at R&B Machine shop. Common sense overcame my desire to do it all myself. Got them back yesterday - $45 well spent.

New parts came yesterday. LMC parts include power steering pump and misc parts, front axle bearings and seals and front and rear driveshaft universal joints to complete my drive shaft, steering, front axle and front end rebuild. I am planning to reuse me old steering gear.Also received my new Moser Engineering alloy replacement axles from Summit Racing. You can see the pitting in my stock axles where it rides on the bearing. The 12 bolt took a while to build but it should be very robust when finished. I'll go over all the mods when officially complete to show how strong it will be now.

Today I was torquing down my new grade 8 bolts on my dana 44 so I could set the final pre-load when the threads all fractured. Couldn't believe it. This was the 2nd time recently I had 1" x 3/8" bolts bought from AF automative fasteners in High Point fail. I guess they have a bad production lot. Kind of scary when you think about it. I need to play it safe and buy my bolts from ARP and be done with it.