Ford 9" with WJ disc brakes?

[mudtoy67]

Good work! Sounds like you're going to make it. :jinx:

It's been a while since I set up a Ford 9, but .006 backlash sounds a bit tight. I thought it was supposed to be more in the area of .008 to .012.

[AgitatedPancake]

Hmm so it is. Well, you'll be finidng out what happens to a 9" with too little backlash here in the next few days, I'm rockin it as is for the trip. I'll be sure to post up if something fails, so you guys can point and laugh.

[mudtoy67]

So how'd it do this weekend?

[AgitatedPancake]

well the 9" held up great, just nothing else did .

I pretzeled my new rear driveshaft the first night, luckily I brought my spare so we swapped the conversion u-joint into it in the rain, at 1 in the morning. FUN! Next day I broke a u-joint in the front 44 on the leadup to winch hill 1, trying to get around my stuck buddy. So then there were 2 of us dead in the water, so a built jeep tried to take the hard line around us...yeah he definately rolled right in between our two trucks, actually landing on my front bumper a bit. Pretty entertaining having 3 dead trucks in 10 feet. As for the broken u-joint, it stretched an ear on the inner shaft and spread the ears of the shafts a little bit. We tore it apart and threw a new u-joint in on the spot even though we could freely spin one of the caps by hand inside the ear, but it held up through the rest of the trip. Then today on the way out I stretched the straps on the front driveshaft and spit the caps off the ujoint. Found the caps, used some extra needle bearings from when we did the rear driveshaft friday night and got it good to go. Wheeled it hard a few more miles, then drove it 100 miles home haha.

Another funny thing, The truck handled on the road up to fordyce (90ish miles?) the best it has in years, it was amazing. ZERO clunks, vibes, pops and noises, the shimmy in the steering wheel disappeared, what I thought were tire shakes were reduced drastically making me wonder if I had a bent axleshaft in the old 44a. I was seriously talking about how well it drove with my passenger the whole time. Fully loaded down I only had like 1" of up travel before hitting the new rear bump stops and I thought it was going to be a problem, but it actually ended up being awesome for me on the road, it kept the body roll WAY down because that side couldnt compress. The polyurethane cushioned well so there were no noises, it was just a little harsh when it compressed fast on the trail, like hitting a rock hard with a rear wheel. I need to raise the rear an inch or two, as I'm ALWAYS loaded like this on the trail, and maybe cut the bumpstops down an inch or so.

Here was out winch hill 1 clusterf*ck. Stuck bronco 2, me broken with the orange jeep kissing my bumper







Rear shaft

[fordnut]

wow at least you guys give each other some space while your out crawling

[AgitatedPancake]

The bronco 2 is my buddy, he got stuck so I came up to him to try to get around, I blew up so the orange jeep (who I don't know) tried to take the harder left line to get around us and rolled his shit, it happens.

[mudtoy67]

Good stuff. That's quite a pile-up.

[AgitatedPancake]

So I didn't update with any final information on the install. I ran into a catch when installing my ebrakes, so I ran the trip without them. The actual ebrake actuator that spreads the shoes inside the drum contacted the back of the axle flange/wheel studs becuase of that 1/4" difference in brake backspacing between the 44a and the 9", which I made up with that rotor spacer.

The cure to this issue is:

Originally Posted by mudtoy67

2. The brake backspacing (distance from wheel mounting surface to axle flange surface) on the 8.8" is 2.5". The late model Ford 9" is 2.375". Many people get aftermarket axle shafts with the correct brake backspacing. I have also seen people run a 1/8" spacer at the axle flange. For my 8.8 disk swap I'm planning on making a 1/8" spacer to fit between the bearing and the axle shaft. To go this route, once you determine the difference in your brake backspacing, measure on the axle shaft how much room you have before the bearing retainer gets to the end of the land. Make sure your bearing retainer will still be fully on-land on the axle shaft.

Putting a 1/4" spacer behind the beairng and seal as said here. That would eliminate my need for those rotor spacers, still give the proper brake backspacing, AND give my ebrake actuator the clearance behind the axle flange to fit. The jeep is going to be parked again atleast for a little bit until I get a new rear shaft made, preferrably CV so I can point the pinion at the tcase to get it out of the damn rocks. I'll let you guys know what happens and when.

[AgitatedPancake]

Oh, and the gearset was completely quiet through the 200+ rigorous miles I put it through, I don't think I'm going to worry about that backlash.

[mudtoy67]

I'm leaning more toward just doing a spacer at the wheel now, but I have done a little research on the redi sleeve. I think it's doable...though in your case since your offset is .25" it may need a little extra work.

Looking at my axle shaft, the actual sealing lip of the seal is about 1/8" from the end of the seal land. So in order to use this method I'm going to have to use install a redi sleeve where it will provide a seal land over the 1/8" spacer.

The Timken seal catalog is here http://www.timken.com/EN-US/products...ments/7707.pdf.

My seal land on my 9" axle shaft measures 1.875" diameter. So I am going to use redi sleeve p/n 99187. This is the widest sleeve in this diameter at .563" (width on shaft). This is where you might have a problem. With my 1/8" spacer there should still be plenty of sleeve contact on my original land and I can run my spacer with an undersized OD so it doesn't interfere with the sleeve. With your 1/4" spacer the sleeve may not have enough contact to install true. If this is the case, I think a solution would be to get your spacer made to the actual seal land OD at a machine shop so that it would be true on the shaft and your redi sleeve could actually be supported by it.

Am I over-thinking this?

[AgitatedPancake]

Nah your not overthinking it - I'm just going to have to find out how much room I have to work with next time I pull a shaft.

[Pac8541]

As an alternative and to provide a brief update of my situation, I took a caliper to Home Depot and mic'd a bunch of washers until I came up with ones that were the 0.050" thickness that Currie stated matched the dust shield. These washers wound up being fender washers for a 3/8" bolt. Figured it would be easier to grind the diameter to size than to buy smaller diameter ones and drill out the hole. One washer for each flange bolt did the trick however, I think I'm still gonna look for a pair of dust shields to either install as is or cut the center section out and use in the future. Four washers per shaft is gonna be a pain in the ass if I ever have to pull the shafts on some trail and put it all back together. For now though, its gonna get me back on the road faster and cheaper.

And for what its worth, I'm also running the Currie spacer rings inside the caliper brackets.