It now has to to be called a Dana 74-1/4 rebuild, cuz the 44 turned into a 74 with the 33 and a bunch of other stuff too.

Well, after hearing a not so good sound while test driving after finishing my 44, I drained the oil and confirmed that the rear gears were Okay (I was real paranoid about the possibly of not doing them right). So I couldn't NOT look at them. They looked great, so that means my front gears, right? The U-Joints were fine, so I opened up the front Dana 30 to find 2-1/2 teeth missing from my ring gear. That Dana 30 ring gear is such a cute little thing. I knew I had two small chips missing after Indy a couple of years ago, so I reckon the rest must have come from Trough Trail last fall.

Oh well, here we go again...

4 Wheel Parts did happen to have everything I needed from gears to seals, which I picked up and had the installation to a point of final gear set-up on that day.

By 5pm the next day (tried to sleep past 10:30, but I just couldn't).  I had everything buttoned up and I felt very comfortable about the set-up (because I took things apart and put them back together at least 7-8 times).

I WAS ELATED! Four months putzin' on the rear-end, and I had the front end together in part of 2 days! It helps to have a clue.

I did some break-in test drives that night and, did notice a rubbing sound coming from my left rear break area. But, as I had enough for the day, I called it quits.

About a mile from my house, on the way to McDonalds for breakfast the next morning, as I was cruising along at about 50 mph I heard/experienced a loud "CLUNK". Holy Smokes! What the hell was that? It sounded like the same thing before I discovered, and rebuilt the front end. By the time I got back home, it was apparent that something was seriously wrong with the left rear parking brake.

Upon disassembly, I discovered that Some Guy freaking left a 9/16" socket in the hub area upon final assembly on the left rear axle... like about three weeks ago. Anyone that has R&R’d D44 axles knows how that could happen (loosing a socket in there... but not FORGETTING one)!

It just "mangled" the shoes, as well as some of the sparse hardware. It's amazing it was at all drivable! Plus, it's now become apparent, that had Some Guy not spaced-out the socket in there, this This Other Guy may have only checked the front diff for fluid level and hit the road...

I spent a couple of hours chasing down parts for an ’03 Rubicon, on Memorial Day (obviously, no one carries replacement parts for a Tera Flex Rear Disc Brake Conversion for on ’02 Wrangler). I had to buy a set of four shoes – used two, and a $33 hardware kit that I ended up using only a shoe locating pin and clip worth about $1.27 from. The springs were completely different, and couldn’t be used, so I reused/reshaped the one spring that had been damaged... ONLY cuz it's the parking brake people!

I've done more test runs, about 25 miles or so, and the only clunks I have are likely worn-out Krawler Joints on my Rock Krawler suspension...

SO...


Cost of replcement parts for the stupid mistakes I made - $66
Cost of SOME of the tools required to make the job happen - $260+
Cost of Dana 30 gears and parts - $353
Rebuilding a Dana 44 with CrMoly axle upgrade yourself - $680

Doing gears, not only one set, but TWO, for the first time – PRICELESS!


Market value is $350/gear set-up (axles additional). I didn't do it for anything close to that if you factor in my time. However I now have a pretty nice digital caliper, multiple bearing pullers, a digital dial indicator, inLb and 250 FtLb Torque wrenches, and other stuff I can’t even recall right now.

Gloriously most important of all is, the experience and knowledge of doing gears.

"Doing gears is like... Knowing that 'perferct', is simply a goal - Just don't forget the details".

A long, long time ago...

I once thought I'd document my progress, but soon realized that that was a stupid idea!   All I can say is, don't do everything I did...

This is my first attempt at doing 'Gears', so I have a lot to learn, eh?  I hope that as this operation progresses, there may be some readers that glean something from my discoveries...

The objects pointed out in the first pic of this link: My First Observations, have turned out to be remnants of the ElecTrac I trashed on Pritchet Canyon in the fall of '06.  Can you believe that?  At the time, I was 'screwed', so I had to have an outfit in Moab install a "New Detroit 'Soft Locker' (the only option)", just to get me back to Denver for work the next day.  I still remember... $930 just to get back home. 

However, it didn't take me long to figure out that an auto-locker was a poor option for my daily driver with the triangulated long arm suspension.  It also turns out that it was not a 'Soft Locker', let alone a "New" Detroit. 

So...I decided to go all the way for my daily driver, to the extent of my 35's, augmented by new 4.88's and ARB's, within a month or so of that fateful trip. 

Three and half years later, I still have FOD!  (FOD = Foreign Object Damage).  It's a military term...  But in this case, it refers to debris left behind in my axle, after two 'Outfits' had replaced the gears/lockers, myself cleaning things out last spring with the installation of rear disk brakes, and it's still there...  F'n FOD! 

My First Observations - again.