Reptar Build

I figured you guys have waited long enough. But yesterday I picked up some big boy axles. A Dana 60 front and Sterling 10.5 out of a 2010 Ford Superduty.
I knew these axles were gonna be big but holy shit!!! These things are pure beef!!! I can't wait to start cutting the brackets off and get some more parts in so that I can start with the swap.
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maybe I missed it but how did hitting the deer make what looks to be a perfectly round hole in the grill?
 
So since I had the day off from work, I took some time to get to work on my tons. And since the rear end is a lot easier to work on than the front, I decided to start there lol.

I took some of the breather hoses and old brake lines off and threw them in the trash since I won't be using any of those in the swap. Before any of you flip shit about me throwing away brake lines, the brake lines go to the axle in different locations on the Jeep than with the F-250, that's why I'm throwing them away.

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So after that I decided that I might as well pull the diff cover off and drain the old oil out of it and inspect the inside, and hope that there's no broken gears or anything inside.
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Nothing to serious on the inside, just a little dirt from the axles sitting outside at the junkyard for a few months.

And since I did such a good job, I had a beer....or three
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You going to run that factory rear diff cover?

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JWebbie2 said:
Nah, I'm gonna run either Ruff Stuff or Solid diff covers. Haven't decided which ones yet.
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I like the solid covers, plus they are dirt cheap on their website. You wanna sell that factory cover?

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Chris_Keziah said:
I like the solid covers, plus they are dirt cheap on their website. You wanna sell that factory cover?

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Yea I like them too, I just wish they had some kind of design on them. I plan on painting them the gecko green, but I don't really want just a plane green cover. So I might go SOLID and paint the ridges and SOLID lettering green and leave the rest black.
And yea I'll sale it to you. You want the front 60 cover too?
 
It's been a while since I've been on here, and I've done a few things to the Jeep since the last update. First I got really tired of all the damn hood flutter so I ordered the Rugged Ridge aluminum hood latches in black.
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Best part about the install is it only took me about 25-30 minutes at most. First I got the old plastic hood latches off, which was pretty easy since theres only a few bolts that hold them on.
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The part that connects to the hood is pretty easy to put on, just takes 2 bolts and 2 nuts and boom they're on.
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The tricky part was the lower hinges that connect to the fender. You have to try and squeeze your hand behind the fender and engine bay, and with normal sized hands it was hard to do. Lucky for me I had long wrenches and the ones that have the rotating end piece so that you don't have to keep taking it off and on to tighten a bolt, since you can only turn that bolt like a quarter turn at a time.
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Here's the final product. Looks a lot better plus there's no more hood flutter!
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So I've done a lot of work to my axles since my last post, I keep forgetting I have a build thread on here lol. But the first thing I did was get the stock mounts on the 1 tons cut off and ordered the Artec Superduty axle swap trusses for the front and rear. I also keep forgetting to order Artecs tone rings and ABS hook up. Next thing I did was order new diff covers from Ruffstuff.
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I also ordered 4 of Ruffstuffs 7/8 heims for when I make my steering.
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So since I ordered the diff covers I figured I should order the gears that they'll be protecting lol. I ended up going with Yukon 5.38s and got the master install kits too.
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Next I had to order a new yoke for the driveshaft of the Sterling 10.5 and I thought I might as well get a spare u joint for it too.
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I ended up ordering a new muffler because I actually bashed the hell out of the stock one when I was at Windrock a while back, so I took it off and have ran it like that for awhile now. But the only bad thing about that is it drones pretty bad if you're sitting in the back seat, so a buddy of mine recommended Magnaflow so I chose their race bullet because it's super small so that I can tuck it up real close and hope I don't beat this one too much. My plan is to take the stock resonator off and put the new muffler there since they are roughly the same size.
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I bought 4 cans of Gecko spray paint so that I could paint a few of my parts to match lol. First I got some self etching primer and covered my diff covers and threw in my D-rings too because why not. After all that dried, I covered them both with a coats of green and then one coat of clear.
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Lastly Off Road Evolution came out with their new EVO mini fender liners and I just had to have them, especially since I hate the look of the stock plastic ones. So I color matched them too!
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After all of that I actually got to working on my axles instead of just ordering parts. Over labor day I ordered some machining for my knuckles for high steer. I figured since I would be doing all this work to swap these bad boys in, I might as well do high steer too. I knew I would regret not doing it anyways since I've already hit my stock tie rod at Windrock a few times lol. So I got to work by pulling off the locking hubs first. The driver side looked good but it looked like the passenger side had some water in it at some point, so I'm gonna clean it real good and see how it looks, but I'll probably end up rebuilding that one.
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Everything looks good inside the hubs.
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Also the same when I pulled the axle shafts out. I felt like it took me forever to get the shafts out, at least 4-5 hours of pulling, cussing, WD-40, more cussing and then they finally popped out. But both shafts look good, all splines are there and straight, which is awesome because I really didn't want to have to buy new ones lol.
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I didn't get the knuckles took off just yet, I got 1 bolt on each side taken off on the outside but couldn't find a socket in the took box to fit the one on the inside, so I called it a night. I'll end up getting them off this week and hopefully sending the knuckles off this week or Monday.
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Finally found the time to get the knuckles off, with work and helping my buddies get their Jeeps ready for Dixie Run last week, I finally got around to getting my stuff worked on!!! Got the knuckles off and the ball joints beat out of them since it was almost impossible to get the press to work on them. Didn't take a picture because lets face it, we've all seen a Dana 60 knuckle before lol. Now to ship them off to get high steer!!!
 
JWebbie2 said:
Finally found the time to get the knuckles off, with work and helping my buddies get their Jeeps ready for Dixie Run last week, I finally got around to getting my stuff worked on!!! Got the knuckles off and the ball joints beat out of them since it was almost impossible to get the press to work on them. Didn't take a picture because lets face it, we've all seen a Dana 60 knuckle before lol. Now to ship them off to get high steer!!!
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Dang never know who you will stumble across on here!! Who's doing your machine work on the knuckles?
 
How much lift are you going with after the 1 tons? Just curious with the steering and truss up front you get limited very fast.


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Are you planning on stretching your wheel base while doin all this work?
 
01tj said:
Dang never know who you will stumble across on here!! Who's doing your machine work on the knuckles?
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Sent them today to Four Wheel Supply in VA. Should have them back hopefully by the end of next week.

iwaxmyjimmy said:
How much lift are you going with after the 1 tons? Just curious with the steering and truss up front you get limited very fast.

Staying with the 3" lift that's on it right now, I don't want to go any taller. But I'll change up my suspension later when I do ORIs.

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anvilrubi said:
Are you planning on stretching your wheel base while doin all this work?
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I'm not stretching it right now, I will when I change the suspension over to ORIs. Plan to push the front axle forward about 2" and the rear around 8". I want my wheel base to be around 106-108
 
You'll love that once you get around to it, everything looks good so far seems like a solid build
 
anvilrubi said:
You'll love that once you get around to it, everything looks good so far seems like a solid build
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Yea I can't wait either. I told myself I wouldn't stretch it until I pay it off..... we'll see how that goes lol. And thanks, I'm trying to do it right the first time
 
Since Barnes is having a sale, I decided to order 12 feet of 1.5" 250 wall tubing to make my drag link and tie rod out of. According to FedEx, I should have the tubing when I get home from work today! I had looked at a fee places locally to get tubing, but it was like pulling teeth to get 10-12 feet of tubing and not have to buy a full 20 foot stick, so that's why Barnes got my business.

I'm hoping I'll have my knuckles back this weekend or maybe early next week. Then I'll start buying a few little things for the Dana 60 like some seals and axle u joints before I start putting the axle back together
 
Tubing showed up today!!! I need to order more stuff from Barnes, I ordered the tubing 2 days ago and it got here super fast!

Now to wait on the knuckles so I can start getting the Artec trusses and steering built...
 
Why didn't you just order the steering kit that comes with the tubing, bungs, jam nuts and joints? 12ft of tubing for your steering is a little much, lol. I think I ended up using like 7 ft when I did the steering on my JK.


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iwaxmyjimmy said:
Why didn't you just order the steering kit that comes with the tubing, bungs, jam nuts and joints? 12ft of tubing for your steering is a little much, lol. I think I ended up using like 7 ft when I did the steering on my JK.


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My 1 tons are a lot wider, so I need more tubing. Plus I would rather have too much than not enough lol. My buddy that's already done a Superduty swap said he used close to 10 foot of tubing. So I got 12 just to make sure. I would hate to be building the steering and end up needing more tubing lol
 
I know you're planning on running high steer but my guess is that tie rod will be shy of 5 ft more like 4 ft 8ish and your drag link is gonna be around 3 1/2-4 ft. You end up losing 6-8" of tie rod/draglink length just from your joints/tierods. See what I mean? That axle is only 4-5" wider than a JK front axle. Not a huge change. Drag link will be 2-3" inch longer but the tie rod will be 6" or so.

Now have you thought much in the aspect of getting the draglink to clear the frame at full stuff? That steering will be higher up than just a flipped drag link on a JK knuckle is why I'm asking. I know several will just lift it more and bumpstops acccordingly. A few have notched the frame rail, in just curious how you're gonna handle it.



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