We got steered a little off course since the beginning of the year, so lets see if we can get back on track by talking, what else "steering". First a bit of an update on the young lad. He got himself into Williamson free school of mechanical trades in the power plant curriculum. http://www.williamson.edu/ For anybody who isn't familiar with this school they take only 100 boys total and distribute them over 6 courses, power plant, machine shop, carpentry, paint, masonry and horticulture. It's a 3 year course with an associates degree and it is free, yep free tuition. Their goal is to produce respectable productive members of society with no strings attached. And they have companies knocking on their doors for these students with job offers. Hey more money for the Jeep fund. Of course the summer was spent rebuilding and installing a 2.2 engine to replace the 1.8 in his Subaru. Now don't get me wrong, it was a good learning experience, but the Jeep got dusty. On to the steering. Sent the original box out to Chip at Power Steering Services. http://www.powersteering.com/ They do a complete rebuild and convert your box from a constant 17.5:1 ratio to a variable 16/13:1 ratio, that's a difference of around 4 1/4 turns down to about 3 1/2 turns. I had the box on my J10 converted to 12:1 ratio (around 3 turns) but Chip didn't recommend that for a short wheel base CJ. Check out their websight for a full rundown on services. These boxes have a lifetime warranty, which uses your stock inch fittings on the hoses and cost $278.00 out and back. Yeah you could get an F body box from the junkyard but it will have metric fittings and you would be hard pressed to find one with 4 mounting holes. With the warranty and quality of work Chip does it ain't worth the aggravation. I can't say enough about him. Give him a call, he knows his stuff and you wont be disappointed. Installation went well with just enough clearance for the larger sway bar mount. The dropped pitman arm as stated in an earlier post is from a Wrangler, but what I did was file out the 4 wider indexing keys on the inside spline so it could be clocked at every tooth as compared to only 4 different positions as in the stock application. This gives me total control to index it to clear the radiused tie rod. To give a little bling I used button head socket head stainless steel bolts on the top of the cross member and even added the same bolts on the passenger side holes and just nutted them on the bottom for a more symmetric appearance. These I got from MSC http://www1.mscdirect.com/cgi/nnsrhm

Let's save some money on the rear brakes, now that doesn't mean cutting quality. I don't know if anybody has priced new or rebuilt Isuzu Rodeo rear calipers or not but they ain't cheap. $80.00 per side for rebuilds. So I did some checking and got a rebuild kit from Auto Zone http://www.autozone.com/home.htm part number 071-7983 caliper kit made by Beck/Arnley http://www.beckarnley.com/ and covers both calipers for $36.99. Comes with piston seal & boot, wire snap ring, bolt boots, bleeder covers and grease. I'll walk you through the rebuild which is not all that difficult if you know the proper sequence.









Started by disassembling the old caliper by forcing (LOW PRESSURE) air through the hose hole and slowly ease out the piston till it's almost out then remove by hand. (Be careful here as it can go flying if you build up too much pressure, and keep your fingers from between the piston & outer brake pad flange). Remove the bleeder & inspect the bore and piston for any pitting. Mine were really nice. I plugged up the piston bore and bead blasted them, courtesy of my cousin who has http://classicjunkyard.com/ and some of the big tools I don't have (hey whats family for), then soaked in kerosene & blew them out. Hit it with degreaser, plugged up the bore and threaded holes then etching primer and the mandatory red. Here's what comes in the rebuild kit.

Start by lubing the piston seal and bore and install seal in groove making sure it is seated

Lube the piston groove & boot and install boot, then strip down over piston as shown.

Insert piston into bore until it reaches the bore seal then work the bottom flange of the piston boot into the groove using a blunt probe seating then install the wire snap ring. You can rotate the piston and boot to simplify this procedure.

















Then taking a length of wood across the piston compress it all the way into the bore. If everything was lubed well this should go pretty easy. Install the bleeder and rubber cap and the caliper is done.

Now the caliper bracket. This was prepared in the same manner as the caliper but then took a wire brush from a gun cleaning kit to clean out the bolt bores.

Lube up the bores and bolt boots and push into place.

Now load them up with your favorite pads, I used Wagner http://www.federal-mogul.com/en/AftermarketSolutions/NorthAmerica/BrakingSolutions/Brands/Wagner(Brake)/ part number WAG ZD580 which are equal to OEM purchased from the friendly boys at B&S Auto Parts in Pine Grove for $33.71 So for a total of $70.70 and some paint we came in under half of rebuilds.

Now all I gotta do is figure out where the rest of these parts go.

Reassembled the front rotors after paint then torqued down the hub to the rotor to have them turned, you must do this to simulate a mounted wheel to eliminate any runout. Whenever you have rotors like these always make sure you give them the inner bearing races, because they will need them to do the turning. These were all but new rotors to begin with so they took very little to clean up.


Yeh, he's into it !!!



Modified the stabalizer shock bracket from what we originally mocked up for more clearance and eye appeal. We actually took two brackets and cut and welded them to form a 90 deg. This way there will be more clearance at the diff. cover.


Your looking at some graduation presents here. From your friendly AutoZone http://www.autozone.com/home.htm front caliper #C528 and #C529 at #14.99 each and these things are complete with new bolts, bushings and o-rings. Brake pads #MKD52S at $22.99 comes with clips. Just added the manditory red paint. I will probably end up using J10 front hoses but will have to fab. a bracket, this way it keeps things simple when it comes time to replace. Alot easier to get a stock item than a custom made one.













All mounted and looking good. Just make sure the bleeder is in the up position, if it's not they are on the wrong side.














And as promised (just one post too late) on all fours. I'd say he looks pretty happy. Although he did promise his school buddies (and some chics from what I here) a ride in it at graduation, of course they are all busting his ass because it's been 4 years so far. Yeh well, good things take time and we feel confidant that so far things are done right with safety first along with some modern technology thrown in. So now he's off to higher education with the outlook looking good. There is alot of little things I can do now like steering box, brakelines (with some trick brackets I have in mind floating around in my head)e-brakes and such. So don't think I'll let you hanging, as long as Blogger stays online I'll be posting.

Well as usual we found something else to hold us up for a little bit. It just seems this thing doesn't want to get on all 4'S. These here are the, I guess for better lack of words dust shields for the front backing plates behind the rotors. Just couldn't bring myself to install these in this condition. Had to drill out the spot welds then was stuck with how to replace them.












The ol brain was churning and I figured they resembled a small dish, so I started raiding the kitchen cupboards with no luck. Even kept my eye's open when we went shopping. Of course my wife couldn't figure out what I wanted in the kitchen isle all the time. Then good old Tractor Supply http://www.tractorsupply.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Home_10551_10001 came through, found some small pet dishes, and in stainless steel no less. Cost around $6.00 for two of them. It even has the spanish on there so those little Chihuahua dogs know where to get a square meal.
















The sides had a bit of a taper to them but it was do-able. Traced the pattern from the old ones then cut it out with a hole saw then drilled and tapped the backing plate for some 8-32 stainless button head cap screws. Just make sure the screws don't extend through because this surface locates on the spindle nose. Except for the tapered sides they are the correct diameter and hieght.

After washing out the grit and grime like we did for the rear housing we disassembled the carrier and found a cracked spherical thrust washer for the one spider gear. Turns out it's only available in a $90.00 spider gear rebuild kit. The spider gear shaft also had excessive wear. We took apart the 3:07 gear set that came with this housing and found good parts like the shaft, washers and spider gears so those were
substituted. We didn't have the luxury of having the pinion shims with this set so it was hit and miss without having a pinion depth set up tool, and couldn't find one to borrow. After spending a good part of a Sat. afternoon putting this carrier in and out and trying to get a good contact mark on the ring gear we walked away from it. Although I must admit Jeffrey was getting pretty quick at it. Sunday came and a new outlook, I stood
there alone while he was up at 4:30 at his job milking cows analyzing the situation and tried to come up with a method of finding the centerline of the axle tube, which is what is needed to set up the nose of the pinion. It dawned on me that if I measured with my dial calipers from the gasket surface down to the top of the carrier bearing race, then removing the carrier and measured the diameter of the race, divide in half then add that to my first measurement I would know where that centerline was in relation to the gasket surface. From that point I added the 2.625 (the standard measurement for a Dana 44 from the axle centerline to the pinion nose) I would have a number from the gasket surface to the pinion nose. Now the markings on our pinion was "0" so I didn't have to add or subtract any amount from that 2.625. I found that the pinion was .015 too low which means I had to add a .015 shim. Did that and got a good measurement and put the carrier back in, adjusted my side to side of the ring gear to get my required .008 to .010 backlash, painted up the ring gear for a marking and was rewarded with a good contact mark. Hey that wasn't that bad, wish I would have thought of that on Sat. Makes ya
realize that walking away can be a good thing. Now all that was left to do was disassemble one more time, put the proper pinion bearing preload shims in to get the required 15 inch pounds of torque, yeah that's right inch pounds not foot pounds. If you don't have an inch pound torque wrench 15 inch pounds equates to 1.25 foot pounds, 1 inch pound = .0833333 foot pounds. Just multiply 15 by .0833333. Installed the oil slinger, seal, yoke and a fresh washer and nut. Then added a .003 shim to each side of the carrier
bearings for preload, spread the housing with my home made spreader and drop in the carrier, torque down the carrier bearing caps and take some final indicator readings. This can be a very time consuming endevor, we got by with minimal tools but can see why a professional charges what they do. They earn every penny. And who knows I might be talking out my butt and find out 1000 miles down the road that it would have payed to have it professionally done. Time will tell. Next post maybe we'll have this thing on all fours.

Assembly commenced on the rear rotors at the bench to make sure all our fabrication was honky dori, it seemed to be, so we took it back apart to lighten the load when it came time to hang it on the springs. I made up my own greasable shackle bolts by taking a stainless steel bolt and drilled a hole halfway down the length on a lathe with a #3 (.213) dia. drill which is the tap drill size for a 1/4-28 thread to accept a grease fitting. Then I milled 2 slots opposite each other along the length in the area covered by the urethane bushings with a carbide ball end mill. A crossed drilled hole was put in connecting the 2 slots with a #38 (.101) dia. drill at the position where the 2 bushings met, then tapped the end for the grease fitting with a 1/4-28 tap. The urethane bushings were cross notched where the 2 inside ends met, this will allow grease to flow through the bolt and to the inside and outside of the bushings. Everything I hear is that these bushings
are prone to squeaking, so hopefully this will take care of that. The axle was then set on top of the springs, and as I was gathering the u-bolts, Jeffrey says something doesn't look straight. I figure, how can that be, but sure enough it was not straight. That's when you start to get this bad feeling in your stomache. Here it turns out that there is more than one hole on the bottom of the spring pads and one of them wasn't centered on the leaf spring bolt. I won't tell whose side it was, but I'm glad he spotted it before the u-bolts were torqued down. We then installed the u-bolts and sway bar and torqued them to spec. Slid in the axles and rotors, painted the caliper brackets red to stay with the performance image and thing were looking good. The calipers will also be painted red but didn't get them yet due to the fact I couldn't find them for under $75.00 apiece, and we didn't need them right away. Priority is to get this thing down on all fours. At this point I was curious to see how good a job I did welding the Isuzu ends on so I mounted a magnetic base to the frame with a dial indicator on the rotors and only had .005 runout, within the limits, so I was happy. Next we'll tackle the front housing.

The rebuild went rather well on the rear Dana 44 rear housing. A rebuild kit was purchased from http://www.4wd.com/ part number 8744 at $89.95. This comes with all the good stuff, like Timken bearings, seals, shims, pinion nut, ring gear bolts and sealer and marking compound, no overseas crap. For the price you can't beat it, although a set of instructions of anything would have been great. Since this was our first time at setting up a rear, I wasn't about to wing it, which I've been known to do. I found a good set of detailed instructions on the internet at http://precisiongear.com/. http://trailhed.com/images/d44/d44p2.jpg and http://trailhed.com/images/d44/d44p3.jpg and http://trailhed.com/images/d44/d44p1.jpg and http://trailhed.com/images/d44/d44p4.jpg
We first started by carefully washing out all the sand left over from the blasting process and even took a wire chimney brush on a drill and ran it through the tubes. All threads were chased with a tap so as to get proper torque readings later on. First thing I did was to make up a set of "setup" bearings, these I honed with a drill mounted cylinder hone so they would slip over the both ends of the carrier housing and sanded the O.D. on the pinion races on a belt sander. This allows for repetive install and removal until you get the proper shim thickness. (One thing that was quite tedious was mastering the stroke on the drill mounted cylinder hone, I overstroked a few times, and we all know what happens when you overstroke. It wasn't pretty. Imagine a long flexable drill mounted 3 stone cylinder hone winging at 1000 rpm's and coming out of the hole on the vise mounted bearing!!!) It got the job done, but I think I need a new cylinder hone. I do see now that Precision Gear offers "setup bearings" that are made just for this purpose. Might be worth looking into. Just follow their detailed installation hints from the links I listed above. These are very informative pages and have lots of pictures. Since this rear already had a 3:54 gearset in it from the junkyard things were pretty well in spec. but we went through the whole procedure as a learning tool for the front housing which will require a gear change, so hopefully we gained enough knowledge to do that one right also.