- Joined
- Mar 24, 2005
- Location
- Stanley, NC
Long version:
Ive been dealing with a gradually increasing amount of slop somewhere between the motor and the wheels on my TJ. I finally had the time today to hunt it down. Quickly eliminated everything from the motor to the rear axle yoke. I was getting about several inches of roll at the tires without turning the pinion yoke (somewhere around 15+ degrees of turn at the yoke without moving the tires). I was certain something had changed in the rearend and I now had a ton of backlash. Pulled the rearend, pulled the cover, checked the backlash, 9thousandths dead on. I then suspected the spider gears in the ARB. Pulled the carrier, disassembled the ARB and found some interesting marks on the sidegears. Further inspection showed that the marks were just machining chatter or some other machining flaw, and that I hadn't even worn them smooth. Durn. Now what? Then I put the sidegears on the axle shafts. Hmm, a noticeable amount of turn between the two. I then slid them a little farther onto the axle, where they don't normally ride, and there was practically no play. You can actually see on the forward drive side of the splines where they are depressed several thousandths (5-10thou probably).
Short version:
I had excessive driveline slop. Discovered its the splines on my rear axleshafts (D60 full float, 30 spline).
The question:
Anyone else experienced this problem?
Im trying to decided whether to just replace the axles with better stock ones of find some type of custom alloy axles (30spline).
Another thing I thought of was to call ARB and see if the only difference between the 30 and 35 spline locker is the sidegears (the bores are over 1.5" where the shafts go into the locker. If that is the case, I could swap out the sidegears and go with 35 spline shafts if I am already spending the money for custom shafts.
What do yall think?
Ive been dealing with a gradually increasing amount of slop somewhere between the motor and the wheels on my TJ. I finally had the time today to hunt it down. Quickly eliminated everything from the motor to the rear axle yoke. I was getting about several inches of roll at the tires without turning the pinion yoke (somewhere around 15+ degrees of turn at the yoke without moving the tires). I was certain something had changed in the rearend and I now had a ton of backlash. Pulled the rearend, pulled the cover, checked the backlash, 9thousandths dead on. I then suspected the spider gears in the ARB. Pulled the carrier, disassembled the ARB and found some interesting marks on the sidegears. Further inspection showed that the marks were just machining chatter or some other machining flaw, and that I hadn't even worn them smooth. Durn. Now what? Then I put the sidegears on the axle shafts. Hmm, a noticeable amount of turn between the two. I then slid them a little farther onto the axle, where they don't normally ride, and there was practically no play. You can actually see on the forward drive side of the splines where they are depressed several thousandths (5-10thou probably).
Short version:
I had excessive driveline slop. Discovered its the splines on my rear axleshafts (D60 full float, 30 spline).
The question:
Anyone else experienced this problem?
Im trying to decided whether to just replace the axles with better stock ones of find some type of custom alloy axles (30spline).
Another thing I thought of was to call ARB and see if the only difference between the 30 and 35 spline locker is the sidegears (the bores are over 1.5" where the shafts go into the locker. If that is the case, I could swap out the sidegears and go with 35 spline shafts if I am already spending the money for custom shafts.
What do yall think?
