With the rear axle differential finally buttoned up, it’s time to turn my attention to getting it completed. I’ve decided to keep my 9″ brakes rather than upgrading to 11″ drums. While the white parts Jeep already has the 11′s on there, it looks to require a bit more re-engineering than what I’d like to go through at this point. I can always go back later and do a swap if it hits me as something I want to do. With how infrequently this vehicle will be driven, and at the speeds it is capable of, I don’t think upgrading to larger brakes is an immediate goal of mine. I also spent some time giving the rear U-bolts a quick coat of paint. Hanging them up in the garage to dry made them look like a really stupid Christmas ornament.

So with the brake decision out of the way, I placed an order for new brake hardware for the rear axle. Soon Ike will be donning powder coated backing plates, new shoes, new shoe springs and mounting/adjusting hardware, and freshly turned drums. Once the brakes are re-built, I’ll start running the brake lines. After I get the rear axle off of my bench, it’ll be time to start on the front axle, which should prove to be quite a bit more complicated than the rear axle. I have a feeling that those knuckles are going to prove to be a formidable adversary to deal with, but I may be pleasantly surprised. I’m really hoping that I don’t have to replace much other than seals and retaining rings on it, except for the pinion seal which happens to be leaking again. If the pinion seal on the front is damaged, then I’ll have to take it in to get replaced. I don’t have the tools or the knowledge to properly remove the pinon nut and yoke and put it all back together the way it should be.

After spending the last few weeks hemming and hawing about the brakes, I had finally decided to just stick with the original style 9 inchers. All the reasons I had decided to stick with the original brakes are still there, but after the suggestion of a coworker, I decided to check the parts Jeep and see what it had on it. The previous owners of the parts Jeep had done various upgrades and changes to it for wheeling out in the desert. Everything from the engine, to the tires and wheels, to the locking hubs had been changed. Come to find out, all these weeks trying to find a source (and the funds), were essentially wasted because the parts Jeep had already been upgrade.

That being said, I still have to get the brakes off of the parts Jeep, and figure out what they came from. After the discovery today that I had already bought 11″ brakes, I realized that I forgot to take a snapshot of them. Interestingly enough, the hubs on the front wheel were on the outside of the drum, not unlike what I have on the rear. They also didn’t appear to be 2″ wide, though that may just be due to the curve of the drums. As long as this setup doesn’t require much re-engineering to get things to work, I think I’ll be off to a good start.

Once I got home, I got anxious to get back to work. After running a tap through the differential cover holes to dig out all the crap (which seemed to take WAY too long), I cleaned off the differential cover gasket, and put on a new Permatex seal. After mounting the cover, the brake line bracket, and the ratio tag, I snugged down the bolts with a torque wrench. Hopefully before next weekend I’ll be able to figure out a little more about my new-found brakes.

I know I said that the front axle was done with paint, but I decided to give it a shot of semi gloss and now it looks much better. I also removed the zerks for the axle bearings and found that they are mostly clean. I’ll have to push some grease through them to make sure no paint got in there. Looks like my putting the nails into the holes to keep paint out worked well.

While I was waiting for the paint to dry I decided to roll out the front axle and start cleaning. After scraping off about three pounds of grease and dirt, I started with the wire wheel. After obliterating the grime around the brake lines I tried to remove them from the axle. One side came right off where the steel line meets the flexible hose for the steering knuckles. The passenger side of the Jeep has always been a bit more difficult to work on, especially up front there the battery had overflowed a time or two spreading corrosive battery acid all over that side. After making the flare nut look more like a shiny super thick round washer, I ended up just cutting the line to remove the majority of it. I’ll have to see if I can get the clip free with some penetrating oil and some banging and prying. Hopefully it will come loose.

The trouble I’m having now is if I should sand blast the axle as it is now to keep any possible sand from getting into it, or if I should start to brake down the knuckles to make it easier to work with. At this point I’m leaning towards blasting as is and then pulling the knuckles apart and blasting those separately.

Since I’m getting to the point where I have to start putting things together, I’m going to have to place an order or two. I’m going to need my differential gaskets, knuckle seals, grease retainers, grease (!), and oh yeah, I still need to order brakes. I’ve got two suppliers right now that I’m trying to evaluate. One is great over email, and the other prefers the phone, so comparing information and products is slow. The other problem is finding the money for the parts purchases. So far I’ve only had to purchase a few small things to get to this point. Moving from 9″ brakes to 11″ brakes is surprisingly not going to cost me much more than replacing the 9″ brakes sans the backing plate.

In any event, I’ll hopefully have an idea of what I need to order next week after tearing down the knuckles and seeing what needs to be replaced. I’m hoping I’ll be pleasantly surprised.

The rear axle is all but finished as far as painting goes. After putting the second coat on the differential cover, it’s just about time to button it all up. I’ll be putting in an order for a differential cover gasket, I’ve already purchased new fastening hardware, and the only thing I’ll need after that is some differential oil.

While I’m happy to be nearing completion on the finishing of the axle, I’m slightly less happy with the way the semi-gloss POR15 dried. When I chose to purchase the semi-gloss over the gloss, I was hoping for a finish similar to some of the other paint I have used. When the POR15 first went on the axle, it was rather glossy. I took comfort in knowing that it would dry and dull slightly. However, it appears that like all things dealing with paint, the amount of gloss left behind is all subjective. I would call the finish matte black rather than semi-gloss, but that’s just me. I could only imagine what matte black would be to this company.

In order to combat that I decided that I’m going to give the parts a quick shot of semi-gloss spray paint. I’ve used it before on other parts and it’s rather resilient, plus with the POR15 underneath it should give me the best of both worlds. While putting the second coat on the differential cover this afternoon, I gave it a quick spray to see what the results are using both POR15 and some good rattle can paint.

I was also finally able to talk to a few parts suppliers about upgraded brakes. It seems the piece that is the hardest to find and get ahold of is the backing plate and core hardware. As drums, especially drums intended for this type of installation, have fallen in popularity in favor of disc brakes, no new backing plate hardware is being produced. I’ve put in emails to two suppliers that specifically sell the conversion kits, and another two that don’t have them listed on their site. We’ll see what happens there.

I also put in my order for the brake forming and flaring tools. Once I get those, I’ll go and get the brake line stock and start a few practice flares and forms before I go to work on the axle. I think I’m also getting to the point where I have to stop putting off getting my frame sand blasted and prepped and need to start figuring out what I’m going to do there.

It took two days due to the incredible heat and humidity limiting how much time I felt like spending outside, but I did get the brakes completely removed and the first coat of POR15 on a majority of the axle. I received my puller early last week, and it sure make a huge difference having an appropriately sized tool. The two that I had borrowed from my father-in-law were far too small to fit around my studs. After lubing the center screw, mounting pulling arms and center body, and getting the anvil wrench on, I went to town pounding. It only took a few good pounds to pull the hub off of the tapered axle shaft.

After looking at the internal brake parts, I went to work getting the assembly off so I could pull the backing plates off. I started on the drivers side, and after figuring out what the additional “adjusters” did on the backside of the backing plate, I was able to spread the shoes far enough out that I could remove the slave cylinder, the spring, and lastly the bottom anchors. Once the assembly was off, the backing plate and axle shims came right off. I ended up zip-tying the axle shaft keys into place, just so I wouldn’t loose them.

After I got the brake parts off, I finished cleaning up the axle flanges that I couldn’t quite get to while the bolts where in place. I also used the wire wheels to get a few spots I had missed with the sand blaster as well as some areas that had some seepage of oil from around the differential cover and the vent holes on the axle tubes. Since the surface was newly cleaned, appropriately scuffed/rough, then it was time to start paining.

I decided to do the everything but the differential cover. I’ll pull that off, give it a good blasting, and then paint it and put it back on with a proper gasket and new fasteners. I still have at least one more coat of POR15 to put on the axle, and I still need to get the areas being held by the jack stands. Luckily it’s going to be ready for brakes here fairly soon.

Since I didn’t get my puller in time to pull the hubs this weekend, the Jeep work became more cleanup work than anything else. I finally cut off the rear tube that was maybe supposed to be a flag holder so that the frame would sit evenly while upside down on the stands. Since it was upside down, I pulled off the 4 axle bumpers from the frame. It’s an unfortunate reality that many vintage Jeep frames have extreme rust where the axle bumpers meet the frame. In what is sure to be one of the few times where I am luckier than others in that I don’t have any serious rust issues beneath them.

I’ve also decided that if I end up upgrading my brakes to 11″ drums, than I will be forming my own brake lines as well. I’m planning on talking with a few parts suppliers to see what is recommended. I’d love to have some better stopping power, but at the same time, I’d just as soon go with an easy replacement that gets me self-adjusting shoes. I don’t plan on doing anything like speeding down the road, but even when I was out driving it before I started the tear down, people would pull in front of me and then stop, as if I was driving a more modern vehicle.

I’m also going to be purchasing some POR15 for painting the axle. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like anyone carries it locally, so I’ll have to purchase online. Hopefully it will get here in time for the long Labor Day weekend so I can get a good amount of work done. It’d be great if I could get the axle painted and start working on putting it back together. Here’s to hoping that the front axle will go faster after I finish this one.

After finding out late last night (when the temp outside finally hit a “cool” 88˚) that the puller I was able to borrow from my father in law wasn’t going to work, I was a little bummed. I’ll have to order one online in order to keep working on the axle, hopefully I’ll have it delivered before next weekend.

This morning (again when the temp outside was a cool 80˚ at 7am) my dad came over to get the flywheel from his 1955 Chevy Pickup sand blasted. Since I was going to do some blasting, I think it ended up working out nicely that I was able to scrape off so much gunk from the rear axle last weekend. After blasting the spring/shock mounts (that still need to be repaired) and my dad’s flywheel, I had started to put everything up and away. By the time I was finished cleaning up, it was already just shy of 90˚ out. But, I changed my mind and worked on getting the axle off of the workbench and down to the end of the driveway.

After quite a bit of pulling and trouble, I got it down to the end, and went to work. One of the major problems I have when sandblasting at home is that my air compressor can’t keep up. So rather than being able to spend about 45 minutes blasting away, I have to go about 5-10 minutes and then wait a good 20 minutes for the pressure to build back up. Not the most ideal, but certainly cheaper than a bigger compressor and probably quicker than getting these big heavy pieces off to a third party.

In any event, aside from missing a few spots (which show up so much nicer in the pictures than they appear in person) the axle is ready for finishing. Once I get the hubs pulled next weekend I’ll be able to pull apart all the brake pieces and backing plates. I’ll have to pull off the differential cover again, get some more of the axle oil out, and then get it masked for painting. I’ve decided to use the POR 15 system on the axles to give it a nice strong and lasting finish. Only trouble is, still need to buy some Once the axle is back together, I’ll get new brake hardware and new brake lines put in, and then it will be time to work on the front axle.

For comparison, this is what it looked like when I started:

In what seemed like a near eternity between the last time I was able to work on Ike, I finally got the rear axle up on the bench to start cleaning it up. After scraping about a pound of grease and dirt from the differential housing and axle tubes, I opened up the differential cover. After talking to a local driveline shop, I decided that at least the rear end would be well within my ability level to get going again. The guy basically said that when I open the thing up, it will be pretty obvious if I need to do anything serious to it and/or get it to a shop. Luckily, the gears inside look fantastic. There aren’t any signs of abnormal wear, and no broken gear teeth or obvious signs of rust on the inside. I was also pretty happy that the ratio tag was also intact under all the crap that had built up around the differential cover.

I was also lucky enough to borrow a hub puller from my father in law. Unfortunately, once I pulled the dust cap, I found that I didn’t have a socket the right size to pull it. Back when I was removing the transfer case, I had to purchase a socket that was between my two largest SAE sockets. At first, I had purchased one that was too big for the nut on the end of the first gear. Against my better judgement, I returned the socket that was too large and got the one that was slightly smaller. Come to find out, that just happens to be the but size on the end of the rear axle.

Now that I have majority of the dirt and grime removed from the axle, I’ll get it ready for sandblasting. Hopefully I’ll have some good weather next week to get the axle blasted and ready for some more disassembly. I’d love to get far enough along on the rear axle to start pulling apart the front one. The front will be a far more laborious process since there are far more parts to it. After I have two good axles down to the metal. I’ll get em prepped and painting, new brake pieces put on, and new brake lines.

That should take me through the end of the summer. Hopefully around that time I’ll actually get around to getting the frame blasted and repaired, and then I can put the suspension back together. I should probably also start thinking about getting some new wheels and tubes for the tires.

In this case, “Dropping a Greasy Deuce” may not be what you think it is.

Or maybe it is what you are thinking. If you are thinking about an old Willys Jeep with two DANA axles being dropped deliberately from the frame mounts.

The weather was so nice and lounging around the house was so wonderful that I really didn’t spend much time on Ike. Friday, however, I did stop by a body shop to look at their work and I’m fairly impressed. I’ll obviously be checking around for prices and quality, but for the first stop it certainly set a high bar. The only downside is that the shop is about an hour away in Rialto. Not a huge killer since no matter where I take the stuff it will need to be trailered, but it sure would be nice if it was all local.

Last week I had started to remove the shackle bolts from the rear end when I ran across a problem. The bolt had seized on to the shackle, so the air hammer wasn’t able to loosen it. Fortunately since I had bough new shackles I wasn’t concerned with re-using these ones, so I decided to just pull out my new favorite tool: the air cutoff tool. The awesomeness that is this tool is only overshadowed by my compressors inability to keep up with it. Aside from that, I went through almost 2 wheels cutting the left rear shackle free, the rear axle U-bolts, and the front two shackles which were also seized.

Once I got the rear leaf springs removed, I took an opportunity to look at the wear. The lower shock plates on all four corners show some pretty heavy wear. I’m hoping that these were fairly original to the Jeep for the amount of wear on them. The left rear spring pack center pin also snapped off showing quite a bit of rust erosion along the shaft. The new spring packs certainly look much better than the old ones, but I guess that is to be expected.

So now the frame is nearly ready for blasting. I want to do a few more looks around to make sure that I’m not missing anything and that everything has been removed. The axles will need to go out for a rebuild as well as some cleaning and painting. Once those three parts are completed, I get to start putting the whole thing back together. It’s taken a long time to get to this point, but I’m sure looking forward to having a functioning Jeep again.

Today was a pretty good Jeep work day. After the dogs so graciously woke me up nice and early, I headed out to the garage. Yesterday I got a tie rod puller from AutoZone under their Loan-a-tool program. The puller was still a bit too big, but much smaller than the one I got from Harbor Freight. It fit well enough to get the tie rod end off the driver’s side knuckle, but still didn’t seem to be able to get a good grip on the joint. Luckily, that didn’t stop me. After a little clever repositioning, I got the puller to grip on to the bell crank arm.

After the tie rods were removed, I started removing all the bits and pieces that were still connected to the frame. After removing brake lines, master cylinder, and the  bolts that were put back in place until I could bag and tag them, the frame was fairly clear of accessories. One very interesting “modification” is how a previous owner dealt with the clutch crossover tube. In what appears to be meant for a cotter pin and maybe a some sort of bushing or spacer was replaced with a nail and some bailing wire. I’m actually wondering if at some point duct tape was involved.

With the frame somewhat cleared, I decided to start on removing the suspension and axels. The first thing I had to do was remove the wheels and tires. Since I already knew that Willys used different threads on each side of the vehicle (left hand threads instead of the normal right hand threads) I proceeded cautiously. Fortunately previous owners before me had replaced all the left handed studs with all right handed ones. This was also the first time I was able to look and see how damaged the stud holes were on the wheels, which would tell me if any were re-usable. Unfortunately, all four wheels have at least 3 oblong stud holes, and 1 of them has 4. I’ll have to wait until I am able to take a closer look at it to see if it’s of any real concern, but it looks like I’ll be buying 5 wheels instead of just 1 for a spare.

Once the wheels were off and the frame was propped up on jack stands, I decided to start taking off the axels. Unfortunately once the blown out shocks were removed, my awesomely quick work slowed to a complete crawl. The rear C-shackles proved very resilient to my air tools and breaker bar. Surprisingly enough, the passenger side came right off. Usually the driver’s side is easier to work on. This time, though, the shackle bolts look like they haven’t been greased for so long that the upper bolt is seized to the shackle. Since the bolt has internal threads with a rubber pieces sandwiched on the back side, I have no way of getting some penetrating oil in there. Not sure what I’m going to do yet, but I may end up having to cut it out.

Along with that, however, I finally made my first big restoration purchase. I’m hoping to have the frame and axels done here in the next month or so, and once those are done, I get to start putting things back together. The only way to hang the axels back on the frame is with a brand new suspension, so that’s what I bought. Although it will be here well before I’ll end up being able to use it, the place I bought it had it on sale, so I figured why not. Now if only I could get all the old stuff off.