Bender - 2010 JKUR

[Crawl2Camp]

Should hold fine, the penetration is whats important. If the aesthetics bother you some fastSteel from polymeric systems and a grinder can make it look as good as the weld on the C.

[KevinG]

Nice job Greer.  Looking good!  I'm a little late to the party about the rear axle but man it looks awesome.

[fiend]

13 hours ago, Crawl2Camp said:

Should hold fine, the penetration is whats important. If the aesthetics bother you some fastSteel from polymeric systems and a grinder can make it look as good as the weld on the C.

I knocked all the spatter balls off.  I could grind it down so it looks better.  But it’s under the Jeep and out of sight, so I’m probably not going to worry about it. 

[fiend]

34 minutes ago, KevinG said:

Nice job Greer.  Looking good!  I'm a little late to the party about the rear axle but man it looks awesome.

Thanks man. It’s coming along. 

[fiend]

Working on the front. Trying to clean up the housing a bit before I weld on the truss and brackets.

[Crawl2Camp]

8 hours ago, fiend said:

Working on the front. Trying to clean up the housing a bit before I weld on the truss and brackets.

Nice.  Looking forward to seeing your progress this weekend.  

[fiend]

Couple of shots from the weekend. I got the truss and all the brackets installed.  All welds to the axle tube were done and more or less cleaned up.  I ran out of time to weld the truss to the pumpkin.  I did that this morning before work.  The housing is all wrapped up now and cooling down in my garage.  May take a peek when I get home this evening, unless it’s still warm. Hopefully no cracks.

[AJK]

Wow Greer that looks really good. I assume you have the axle wrapped to cool down slowly?

[fiend]

4 minutes ago, AxK said:

Wow Greer that looks really good. I assume you have the axle wrapped to cool down slowly?

Thanks. Yeah, wrapped up in a fiberglass welding blanket and then a a couple of old bedding blankets with some bungee cords to hold it all together. 

[AJK]

If you need a hand installing those once you are done let me know. I would be happy to come over and help you out.

[fiend]

49 minutes ago, AxK said:

If you need a hand installing those once you are done let me know. I would be happy to come over and help you out.

Thanks man, I appreciate the offer. Gonna be a little bit to install.   I first need to figure out the steering, track bar, and diff cover, among other things.

[fiend]

So I unwrapped the housing this morning after letting it cool all day yesterday and last night. It actually looks better than I expected. Nickel MIG wire just doesn’t lay down nicely. At least, I haven’t been able to do it. Doesn’t help that I forgot to put on my reading glasses for half of the beads. But the penetration looks good and I see no cracks. And it doesn’t look like dog shit. I’m satisfied. 
 

I’ll throw some paint on it today.  This weekend it’ll be on to the next step: setting up the gears and installing the locker bulkhead fitting. 

[AJK]

Thats looks great. What type of rod is that inside the house?

[Crawl2Camp]

I don't know what your talking about.
 It sure looks like you figured out the trick with the Ni wire to me.  Came out great.

[fiend]

11 minutes ago, AxK said:

Thats looks great. What type of rod is that inside the house?

Pool scoop handle. It was the only thing I had that’s long enough to go all the way through. Thin walled aluminum.  I half expect it to fail and drop the housing onto the floor. 

[fiend]

14 minutes ago, Crawl2Camp said:

I don't know what your talking about.
 It sure looks like you figured out the trick with the Ni wire to me.  Came out great.

Thanks! 

[Jdofmemi]

Looks pretty good to me Greer

 

I've paid pros for way worse looking work. 

[fiend]

44 minutes ago, Jdofmemi said:

Looks pretty good to me Greer

 

I've paid pros for way worse looking work. 

Thanks Jerry!

[fiend]

All the welding is done. Now I need to wash/degrease and get some paint on it. Here are a few more pics. 

[fiend]

Setting up the front gears. 2010 Super Duty 60. ARB. 5.38 gears.  Used a case spreader.  .007 backlash. Thoughts? 

[Crawl2Camp]

That looks great Greer.  Your getting really good at welding the truss to pumpkin!  Are you going to be using standard rubber joints in the axle side control arm mounts?

[Jdofmemi]

Looks like you nailed it!

 

Great job. We missed you today, but glad to see you made that much progress. 

 

Bender will be in beast mode soon!

[fiend]

1 hour ago, Crawl2Camp said:

That looks great Greer.  Your getting really good at welding the truss to pumpkin!  Are you going to be using standard rubber joints in the axle side control arm mounts?

Thanks Kevin. My welds are just good enough to be painted and hidden under the vehicle.

 

I have Johnny  joints for the axle side upper control arm mounts. 

[fiend]

29 minutes ago, Jdofmemi said:

Looks like you nailed it!

 

Great job. We missed you today, but glad to see you made that much progress. 

 

Bender will be in beast mode soon!

Thanks Jerry. I got lucky with the pinion depth. First try was the right one.  I took all the saved time and used it to mess around with the pinion preload, which took all of it.
 

Tomorrow I’ll button up the locker plumbing and maybe get the knuckles on and start figuring out the steering. Not exactly sure how the hydraulic ram is going to mount. And whether I will need to go to an 8” stroke.  It’s all coming along, but taking lots of time. Hopefully will be worth it in the end. 
 

Sorry I missed you guys today. I’ll check out the photos. Glad you had fun. 

[Crawl2Camp]

1 hour ago, fiend said:

Thanks Kevin. My welds are just good enough to be painted and hidden under the vehicle.

 

I have Johnny  joints for the axle side upper control arm mounts. 

 

I saw this today on a Fusion axle on Facebook.  The guy ordered it with the Johnny joints, but they just pressed it into the normal bracket they use instead of cutting the top off and welding in the supplied johnny joint bracket.  
I personally didn't know that was required to install those.