Nothing Special's '71 Bronco

[Gary Lewis]

I was just thinking of how to get a bit more clearance for the TC and providing some kind of raised plane so you could attach a shift boot.

Though I don't know about the boot you might need for your twin stick setup.

It seems there are no compound curves, just simple folds.

Looking forward to whatever you figure out.

Progress is good!!!

Well done! The pic of the tower up through the floor when it was below the floor tells the tale. You really brought it up.

And the crossmember looks great as well. Can't wait to see the skid plate.

[Nothing Special]

I was just thinking of how to get a bit more clearance for the TC and providing some kind of raised plane so you could attach a shift boot.

Though I don't know about the boot you might need for your twin stick setup.

It seems there are no compound curves, just simple folds.

Looking forward to whatever you figure out.

Progress is good!!!

I don't think I need more clearance for the transfer case. I might get some contact when the Bronco flexes, and if that's annoying enough I might change my mind. But for now at least I'm happy with the 1-2 mm I have. So if I can cover up the hole where the sticks come though I'll be happy with that.

As to the twin sticks, they do make a double boot for that. I had one once, but it didn't work so well when I had the sticks coming through where the side of the tunnel was angled. So I got two single boots and put them side by side. Now I think I'm going to get one of the double boots again and mount it on the top of the "box" I need to build around the tower. I'm thinking that will work out pretty well.

.... Can't wait to see the skid plate.

You and me both!

[Gary Lewis]

I was just thinking of how to get a bit more clearance for the TC and providing some kind of raised plane so you could attach a shift boot.

Though I don't know about the boot you might need for your twin stick setup.

It seems there are no compound curves, just simple folds.

Looking forward to whatever you figure out.

Progress is good!!!

I don't think I need more clearance for the transfer case. I might get some contact when the Bronco flexes, and if that's annoying enough I might change my mind. But for now at least I'm happy with the 1-2 mm I have. So if I can cover up the hole where the sticks come though I'll be happy with that.

As to the twin sticks, they do make a double boot for that. I had one once, but it didn't work so well when I had the sticks coming through where the side of the tunnel was angled. So I got two single boots and put them side by side. Now I think I'm going to get one of the double boots again and mount it on the top of the "box" I need to build around the tower. I'm thinking that will work out pretty well.

.... Can't wait to see the skid plate.

You and me both!

Have you thought about UHMW-PE (ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene)? The guys running RZR's swear by the stuff. I helped my neighbor put a set on his and he raved about it when he got back. Said its like having lubrication on your skid plate - it slides over rocks with ease.

But I don't know quite how you'd use it. The stuff for the RZR's comes formed and there's no place for a rock to catch an edge. So in flat sheets you'd have to create a frame that supports it and has places for it to bolt on, with recessed bolt heads.

[Nothing Special]

Have you thought about UHMW-PE (ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene)? The guys running RZR's swear by the stuff. I helped my neighbor put a set on his and he raved about it when he got back. Said its like having lubrication on your skid plate - it slides over rocks with ease.

But I don't know quite how you'd use it. The stuff for the RZR's comes formed and there's no place for a rock to catch an edge. So in flat sheets you'd have to create a frame that supports it and has places for it to bolt on, with recessed bolt heads.

I have thought about it, but I'm not going to use it. If I had a completely flat belly and could just slap a flat sheet of it on I might do that. But I don't, I don't know how to build it around everything that stick below the frame and I don't want to take on an indefinite project like that. So steel it is.

[Nothing Special]

I have thought about it, but I'm not going to use it. If I had a completely flat belly and could just slap a flat sheet of it on I might do that. But I don't, I don't know how to build it around everything that stick below the frame and I don't want to take on an indefinite project like that. So steel it is.

In my motorhome thread Gary asked about timing and project list for the Bronco. I thought I'd answer that here in my Bronco thread.

We've got a little over a month before our trip to Hurricane, Utah. The plan is to spend a few days 'wheeling at Sand Hollow and a couple days exploring Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks. We need the Bronco for both activities, so we really need it for this trip!

As for what's left, getting the gears set up is the big one. I could see that being done in a few hours if everything goes well, or in a few weeks if it goes the other way. We'll just have to see!

Installing the axle shouldn't be a big deal. I've done it several times through this project.

Installing new ball joints is a bit of a wild card as I've never done it before. But I don't think it should take too long.

Axle shafts, spindles, hubs and brakes need to go on. That should be a few hours.

Then there will probably be a handful of little things like bleeding brakes. But i'm not going to try to list all of those kind of things now.

And I need to get my mud tires balanced (plus one isn't holding air) and get the Bronco aligned.

That is the bare minimum to get it driving. I also would like to get the shifter holes covered up. That means some simple sheet metal work and getting some boots installed.

If I could I'd love to get a skid plate made. But I'm thinking that will get pushed back to after this trip.

I think that about covers it. I got started on the gears tonight and have some progress I'll put in another post.

[Gary Lewis]

In my motorhome thread Gary asked about timing and project list for the Bronco. I thought I'd answer that here in my Bronco thread.

We've got a little over a month before our trip to Hurricane, Utah. The plan is to spend a few days 'wheeling at Sand Hollow and a couple days exploring Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks. We need the Bronco for both activities, so we really need it for this trip!

As for what's left, getting the gears set up is the big one. I could see that being done in a few hours if everything goes well, or in a few weeks if it goes the other way. We'll just have to see!

Installing the axle shouldn't be a big deal. I've done it several times through this project.

Installing new ball joints is a bit of a wild card as I've never done it before. But I don't think it should take too long.

Axle shafts, spindles, hubs and brakes need to go on. That should be a few hours.

Then there will probably be a handful of little things like bleeding brakes. But i'm not going to try to list all of those kind of things now.

And I need to get my mud tires balanced (plus one isn't holding air) and get the Bronco aligned.

That is the bare minimum to get it driving. I also would like to get the shifter holes covered up. That means some simple sheet metal work and getting some boots installed.

If I could I'd love to get a skid plate made. But I'm thinking that will get pushed back to after this trip.

I think that about covers it. I got started on the gears tonight and have some progress I'll put in another post.

Here's hoping it goes together easily and you are done before you know it.

[Nothing Special]

In my motorhome thread Gary asked about timing and project list for the Bronco. I thought I'd answer that here in my Bronco thread.

We've got a little over a month before our trip to Hurricane, Utah. The plan is to spend a few days 'wheeling at Sand Hollow and a couple days exploring Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks. We need the Bronco for both activities, so we really need it for this trip!

As for what's left, getting the gears set up is the big one. I could see that being done in a few hours if everything goes well, or in a few weeks if it goes the other way. We'll just have to see!

Installing the axle shouldn't be a big deal. I've done it several times through this project.

Installing new ball joints is a bit of a wild card as I've never done it before. But I don't think it should take too long.

Axle shafts, spindles, hubs and brakes need to go on. That should be a few hours.

Then there will probably be a handful of little things like bleeding brakes. But i'm not going to try to list all of those kind of things now.

And I need to get my mud tires balanced (plus one isn't holding air) and get the Bronco aligned.

That is the bare minimum to get it driving. I also would like to get the shifter holes covered up. That means some simple sheet metal work and getting some boots installed.

If I could I'd love to get a skid plate made. But I'm thinking that will get pushed back to after this trip.

I think that about covers it. I got started on the gears tonight and have some progress I'll put in another post.

Tonight I finally got started setting up my gears. I'm starting with a new-to-me axle housing, the diff that was in my old housing, and new gears. So I'm pretty much starting from scratch.

I got my axle housing with the pinion shaft still installed, so I measured the shim thickness behind the inner race (that's what sets pinion depth) and started there. And the OX locker puts the case shims behind the pressed-on bearings, so I used what I had from my old axle as a starting point.

My first move was to put the diff in without the pinion to see if I was even close on the case preload. Turned out there was .004" freeplay side-to-side. So it wasn't horribly far off, at least close enough to stick the pinion in and start seeing where that needed to be.

The Dana 44 doesn't have a crush sleeve! It uses shims behind the nose bearing to set preload. But for now I'm not putting any shims there. Instead I'm just torquing the pinion nut far enough to give me the proper pinion preload. After I get everything else dialed in I'll get the shims figured out to get the correct pinion preload with the pinion nut torqued correctly.

So with the pinion in I threw the case back in. On my first attempt it had no backlash, so I loosened the caps and tried moving it away from the pinion (remember, I have .004" freeplay at this point). That gave me .002" backlash (it should be .006" - .010"), so not really too far off. I also checked the total torque-to-turn and found it was about 4 lb-in above the pinion torque-to-turn. It should be 5-15 lb-in more with the correct case preload.

Next I pulled the "button side" bearing off the diff and measured the shims there. I had .054". Adding shim thickness on the button side would increase my backlash and increase my case preload, both of which were too low. I started with .010" more shim (going to .064"). That got rid of my freeplay (and added some preload). It also gave me .004" backlash, still a little too low, but I decided it was close enough to run a pattern.

This is what I got. I'd sure welcome any helpful advice on reading patterns, but it doesn't look too bad to me. I'm thinking maybe it's telling me that I'd be better off increasing the pinion depth to get the pattern a little lower on the ring gear teeth. But I'm not sure if I should try to dial in the backlash and case preload before I make any pinion depth changes.

And speaking of case preload, I'm only at 5 lb-in over the pinion torque-to-turn now, so I still need to add more preload.

Here's a picture of the pattern on the drive side:

And here's the coast side pattern:

 

[Gary Lewis]

Tonight I finally got started setting up my gears. I'm starting with a new-to-me axle housing, the diff that was in my old housing, and new gears. So I'm pretty much starting from scratch.

I got my axle housing with the pinion shaft still installed, so I measured the shim thickness behind the inner race (that's what sets pinion depth) and started there. And the OX locker puts the case shims behind the pressed-on bearings, so I used what I had from my old axle as a starting point.

My first move was to put the diff in without the pinion to see if I was even close on the case preload. Turned out there was .004" freeplay side-to-side. So it wasn't horribly far off, at least close enough to stick the pinion in and start seeing where that needed to be.

The Dana 44 doesn't have a crush sleeve! It uses shims behind the nose bearing to set preload. But for now I'm not putting any shims there. Instead I'm just torquing the pinion nut far enough to give me the proper pinion preload. After I get everything else dialed in I'll get the shims figured out to get the correct pinion preload with the pinion nut torqued correctly.

So with the pinion in I threw the case back in. On my first attempt it had no backlash, so I loosened the caps and tried moving it away from the pinion (remember, I have .004" freeplay at this point). That gave me .002" backlash (it should be .006" - .010"), so not really too far off. I also checked the total torque-to-turn and found it was about 4 lb-in above the pinion torque-to-turn. It should be 5-15 lb-in more with the correct case preload.

Next I pulled the "button side" bearing off the diff and measured the shims there. I had .054". Adding shim thickness on the button side would increase my backlash and increase my case preload, both of which were too low. I started with .010" more shim (going to .064"). That got rid of my freeplay (and added some preload). It also gave me .004" backlash, still a little too low, but I decided it was close enough to run a pattern.

This is what I got. I'd sure welcome any helpful advice on reading patterns, but it doesn't look too bad to me. I'm thinking maybe it's telling me that I'd be better off increasing the pinion depth to get the pattern a little lower on the ring gear teeth. But I'm not sure if I should try to dial in the backlash and case preload before I make any pinion depth changes.

And speaking of case preload, I'm only at 5 lb-in over the pinion torque-to-turn now, so I still need to add more preload.

Here's a picture of the pattern on the drive side:

And here's the coast side pattern:

I've not done an axle setup, so take this with a lot of salt. But I've read about it and from what I've read you are really close. And I don't have a clue what order to do things in. So I'll hang out and see what the others have to say.

[Nothing Special]

Tonight I finally got started setting up my gears. I'm starting with a new-to-me axle housing, the diff that was in my old housing, and new gears. So I'm pretty much starting from scratch.

I got my axle housing with the pinion shaft still installed, so I measured the shim thickness behind the inner race (that's what sets pinion depth) and started there. And the OX locker puts the case shims behind the pressed-on bearings, so I used what I had from my old axle as a starting point.

My first move was to put the diff in without the pinion to see if I was even close on the case preload. Turned out there was .004" freeplay side-to-side. So it wasn't horribly far off, at least close enough to stick the pinion in and start seeing where that needed to be.

The Dana 44 doesn't have a crush sleeve! It uses shims behind the nose bearing to set preload. But for now I'm not putting any shims there. Instead I'm just torquing the pinion nut far enough to give me the proper pinion preload. After I get everything else dialed in I'll get the shims figured out to get the correct pinion preload with the pinion nut torqued correctly.

So with the pinion in I threw the case back in. On my first attempt it had no backlash, so I loosened the caps and tried moving it away from the pinion (remember, I have .004" freeplay at this point). That gave me .002" backlash (it should be .006" - .010"), so not really too far off. I also checked the total torque-to-turn and found it was about 4 lb-in above the pinion torque-to-turn. It should be 5-15 lb-in more with the correct case preload.

Next I pulled the "button side" bearing off the diff and measured the shims there. I had .054". Adding shim thickness on the button side would increase my backlash and increase my case preload, both of which were too low. I started with .010" more shim (going to .064"). That got rid of my freeplay (and added some preload). It also gave me .004" backlash, still a little too low, but I decided it was close enough to run a pattern.

This is what I got. I'd sure welcome any helpful advice on reading patterns, but it doesn't look too bad to me. I'm thinking maybe it's telling me that I'd be better off increasing the pinion depth to get the pattern a little lower on the ring gear teeth. But I'm not sure if I should try to dial in the backlash and case preload before I make any pinion depth changes.

And speaking of case preload, I'm only at 5 lb-in over the pinion torque-to-turn now, so I still need to add more preload.

Here's a picture of the pattern on the drive side:

And here's the coast side pattern:

I thought I'd also show how I am doing some of the more challenging things, but I'm putting this in a separate post to avoid each post from getting too cluttered.

I'm not using set-up bearings. I know "they say" you need to. But I tried that last time and everything changed on me when I went to the "real" bearings, so I had to start all over. It is easier working with set-up bearings, but if I'm going to have to set up the gears with the real bearings anyway I don't see the point in doing it twice.

But the OX locker has the case shims behind the case bearings (some diffs, like the ARB, put the shims behind the races). That means I need to press the case bearings on and off the differential every time I need to change shims. Putting the bearings on isn't that hard. I use a hammer with a softer metal piece between the bearing and hammer. It takes quite a few swings to get it on all the way, but they don't have to be real hard swings.

But getting them off is tougher. I ran into that when I installed the OX a few years ago, so back then I made this puller to get them off. The "block" at the bottom has a thin flange that goes under the bearing and pulls against its inner race. And you can sort of see in the picture, but it's actually two pieces that come in from opposite sides. The round piece is just a spacer and the bolt through the plate on top pushes against a piece that fits inside the bearing and pushes it on the diff. It's not blazingly fast, but it does go pretty easily.

(edit to add:

Here's another picture of the bottom "block" separated into its two halves. And the piece that pilots in the bearing and pushes it on is sitting on top of the bearing.

https://forum.garysgaragemahal.com/file/n122522/DSC_3734.jpg

)

When I installed the OX in my old axle I used a hammer and a block of wood to drive it into the housing. And prying it out is actually pretty easy (you put a wrench on a ring gear bolt and turn the pinion, when the wrench hits the housing it pushes the diff out). So I was going to do it the same way this time.

But then I heard of a simple, cheap way to make a housing spreader. A couple of plates cut from some 3/8" scrap steel with a couple tubes welded to the ends. Bolt the plates to the housing and put some threaded rod through the tubes. Turn the nuts on the inside to spread it apart and the case just drops in!

I'll add more tool pics as I use more tools.

[Gary Lewis]

I thought I'd also show how I am doing some of the more challenging things, but I'm putting this in a separate post to avoid each post from getting too cluttered.

I'm not using set-up bearings. I know "they say" you need to. But I tried that last time and everything changed on me when I went to the "real" bearings, so I had to start all over. It is easier working with set-up bearings, but if I'm going to have to set up the gears with the real bearings anyway I don't see the point in doing it twice.

But the OX locker has the case shims behind the case bearings (some diffs, like the ARB, put the shims behind the races). That means I need to press the case bearings on and off the differential every time I need to change shims. Putting the bearings on isn't that hard. I use a hammer with a softer metal piece between the bearing and hammer. It takes quite a few swings to get it on all the way, but they don't have to be real hard swings.

But getting them off is tougher. I ran into that when I installed the OX a few years ago, so back then I made this puller to get them off. The "block" at the bottom has a thin flange that goes under the bearing and pulls against its inner race. And you can sort of see in the picture, but it's actually two pieces that come in from opposite sides. The round piece is just a spacer and the bolt through the plate on top pushes against a piece that fits inside the bearing and pushes it on the diff. It's not blazingly fast, but it does go pretty easily.

(edit to add:

Here's another picture of the bottom "block" separated into its two halves. And the piece that pilots in the bearing and pushes it on is sitting on top of the bearing.

https://forum.garysgaragemahal.com/file/n122522/DSC_3734.jpg

)

When I installed the OX in my old axle I used a hammer and a block of wood to drive it into the housing. And prying it out is actually pretty easy (you put a wrench on a ring gear bolt and turn the pinion, when the wrench hits the housing it pushes the diff out). So I was going to do it the same way this time.

But then I heard of a simple, cheap way to make a housing spreader. A couple of plates cut from some 3/8" scrap steel with a couple tubes welded to the ends. Bolt the plates to the housing and put some threaded rod through the tubes. Turn the nuts on the inside to spread it apart and the case just drops in!

I'll add more tool pics as I use more tools.

It makes sense to me not to use set-up bearings if you have to don it over again. And that puller looks slick.

But the case-spreader is ingenious! Brandon/Bruno2 and I talked about how to do that and we didn’t come up with any good ideas. That one is magic!