Rockwells

tech701

tech701

Member
Joined
Mar 23, 2005
Location
Clayton
I've been thinking about gathering parts for my next project and I've decided to use rockwell axles. Can anyone give me some pointers on these things, like how much should I expect to spend on them. Are there certain ones that I should steer clear of? I don't know didly about them.
 
For one, rockwells arent that expensive so dont get ripped off by a seller - you can find a front and rear for under a grand. Your target rockwell is a spicer type ujoint, stay clear of the bendix or repeza types. They are cheap, weld the diffs, toss on a pinion brake and youve basically got inexpensive indestructable axles. Only downside, you need to run big tires and they are heavy, and either 20" stock wheels or recenter h1 wheels. Have fun.
 
Cool axles for sure and not too expensive if you run a front and a rear.One thing that I overlooked is how heavy everything is.Its a chore to do most anything on them. Like Mr.Nuts said you can score a set under a grand, clean em up, slap the pinion brake on there and there ya go......... oh, and they are really wide in stock form.:huggy:
 
tech701 said:
Do they have any kind of locker in them or are they all open? Are they pretty easy to cut?
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they are open, no locker. But can be welded easily. You dont have to cut them, you can flip the hubs to narrow them a little. They are not that difficult to cut though if you go that route. Search for buggybuilders post, he posted on cutting them down.
 
Yep, they have lockers for them, but dont waste yer greenbacks on one......
I mean I dont really consider these to be a roadworthy axle anyways so you may as well Lincoln Lock em.......I know I will catch hell for sayin that but if I was going to put alot of road miles, seems like a 60 would fit the bill.......

Cutting them aint too bad but you can flip the hubs and they will be about the right width........just got to grind those damned wheel studs down for clearance clarance...:D
 
http://www.nc4x4.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3337

To answer the question below;
Yes, I had my welder amped out and the gears clamped up so nothing pulled out of line. I was going for that complete soild spool style, I even put it on the nose tire balancer at work to make sure the weight and balance was true. It took awhile because I didn't want to overheat everything, few passes, wait, few passes, wait, etc.
 
So lets say I wanted two fronts to go under a yj or a tj. Would I need to cut them down or would just flipping the hubs get me narrow enough?
 
tech701 said:
So lets say I wanted two fronts to go under a yj or a tj. Would I need to cut them down or would just flipping the hubs get me narrow enough?
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a rockwell is something like 79.5" wide, a normal steering 1 ton axle is 69". You can flip the hubs if your doing 2 fronts and narrow it down to just about 1ton width. Its still going to be wide due to the backspacing needed on the wheels to clear the flipped hubs, hence the cutting.
 
Ok, so lets jump ahead a little. Where is the best place to get the shafts shortened? Can it be done locally or is shipping involved?
 
792.5cj5 said:
Cut them down to run 2 short sides
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Yep, cut the long side 7" and just use a short side inner.......

You can see where I cut and re-welded my housing......

ai3.photobucket.com_albums_y54_buggybuilder_000_0041.jpg
 
The idea is; I already have a trail rig. Its about 90% complete but very trail worthy. So I thought I'd do a little a something with some rockwells. It might take me years to complete it. Half the fun is building it...... I take it back, most of the fun is building it b/c there really aren't that many places to go wheeling around here.
 
tech701 said:
The idea is; I already have a trail rig. Its about 90% complete but very trail worthy. So I thought I'd do a little a something with some rockwells. It might take me years to complete it. Half the fun is building it...... I take it back, most of the fun is building it b/c there really aren't that many places to go wheeling around here.
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Well, I wouldnt have put it like that......I enjoy building "as much as" I enjoy wheeling.....and theres plenty of places to go wheelin somewhat local......I say if you want to build something with rockwells then go for it.........I am just giving you what I got on these axles.....Im no 2.5 ton guru but all the info you may EVER need is located on pirate4x4.....
 
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