Talk about one of those days. The plan for the day was to get SSDutch’s brakes flushed and bled. To do that I went and bought some Speed Bleeders to make the job simpler.
I installed 3 with no problem, replacing the original bleeders with the Speed Bleeders. The 4th original bleeder on the drivers side rear wheel was broken off flush with the backing plate. After the requisite “fanciful language” I decided to replace the wheel cylinder, and went to pull the wheel off and noted that one lug nut came off very hard. Looked inside - stripped, from a stripped lug stud.
More fanciful language. But I decided to deal with the stud in some fashion and proceeded to pull the center cap and axle nut.
Then I remembered - 9” rear drums on old Jeeps can be a pain in the keester to remove. I tried my largest puller, which after cranking on just bent the center shaft into a slightly pretzled shape and re-shaped the pointed end.
More fanciful language.
All this time, I’m just about sitting on the rear axle I have saved from Dutch. Rebuilt, fresh PowrLok, and 11” brakes installed.
So, for the want of a bleeder screw I began an axle swap. One I had been planning on, but not quite this soon.
Let me preface the rest by giving out some big thanks to my wife, son, and friend Brian “Sasquatch” from EarlyCJ5.com. Axles are large, awkward and heavy so having some help with the heavy lifting was much appreciated.
Here’s the rear axle coming out:
The new rear axle is in place completely, save for being U-bolted down to the springs. I had to cut the U-bolts holding the axle in, and could not source replacements locally on a Saturday.
Here’s the new front axle going in:
And the new axle in, at least in place resting on the springs. At this point I’m too tired to continue, so will complete the installation on another night.
With this project, SSDutch gains:
- 11” Brakes all around
- Fresh PowrLoks in the rear, and the addition of a PowrLok up front where it used to be open
- “Knuckle Stud” conversion on the front
- Larger U-joint at the front axle (see below).
The old axles out:
I had trouble getting the steering connected, and here’s why. SSDutch came with a Saginaw steering conversion, but the double-hole tie rod end has the bend 180 degrees different than the one I used (painted one is from Dutch, unpainted from SSDutch):
Here’s where that difference really becomes noticeable. In this picture I have both drag links at their widest angle to the tie rod:
I ran into two other issues with this swap. First - the aftermarket spring u-bolts aren’t long enough to get around the original 11-leaf springs still on SSDutch’s rear. I couldn’t find any locally, so had to have some custom-bent at State Spring in Grand Rapids. They did a great job - took about 10 minutes and cost slightly less than the aftermarket ones purchased elsewhere.
Having solved that issue, the next problem was the yoke on the front D27. I knew Jeep had used 2 different sizes, and sure enough I had one of each. The solution here was a more expensive one, as I had to buy an impact wrench and a 2-jaw gear puller to remove the yokes.
Here’s a picture that shows the size difference:
Once those were changed around the rest of the axle swap was pretty straightforward.
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Greg Smith (gscj5) on August 09, 2005
Michael Boyink (Author) on August 09, 2005