Ordered new CCV grommets and ports for when I pull the valve cover. The Jeep's gonna look pretty darn good under the hood once all the work is done.

Got the new drive shaft painted. U-joints are going in this week and then it's just a matter of waiting for the HnT to arrive from IRO.

 

New u-joints are in. The clips are the copper colored ones that come with Spicer 1310 joints. Figured I'd point this out just to avoid questions about whether I used the old clips or not. Just waiting on Fed-Ex to show up at the house with my HnT now.

 

Justin, you've got me so paranoid now about those friggin' brackets...

 

sorry lol.

I've had issues with mine shearing before though - it wasn't the first time. Something tells me my completely shot drivers side motor mount and trans mount had something to do with it though...

 

Just maybe.

That's why I really want to get these changed out before I do any more off road driving.

 

Yeah.... I am keeping an eye on my mounts now for sure... my tranny mount looks good, the Brown Dogs are doing great, and I've not noticed any problems yet though so - fingers crossed.

 

So I drove to the other side of town the other day and ended up getting stuck in rush hour traffic. Not a huge deal or anything, until traffic started moving at about 30mph and I started hearing, "click, click, click, click, click". I let off the throttle and the clicking changed to "brrgrrah" for a moment and then it went back to the clicking. Finally time to get the HnT done.

Did the Hack

(sorry but I failed to snag an actual "before" shot so me holding the cut off piece has to do)

Chamferred the edges of the shortened output shaft so the new yoke would slide on easily.


Drilled and Tapped the output shaft so the new yoke could be attached (this is what takes the most amount of time).


Put the new yoke on


And installed the rebuilt driveshaft


Took it out for a test drive, staying at various speeds up to 75 and also quickly letting off the throttle and there were no vibes, no u-joint chatter....nothing but smooth driving.

 

Sweet!
How long did it take you?

 

About 3 hours from getting the tools out to putting them away and doing the test drive.

 

How's no muffler sound? Does it drone at all? I've got a cherry bomb and no muffler that dumped right after it was just too loud

 

It sounds alright. It drones a little at lower speeds but it's not bad. I had a thrush muffler before and I prefer not having one compared to how that sounded.

 

With the rear driveshaft done and looking nice, the front suddenly became pretty ugly. The u-joints and all were fine, it just looked like crap compared to the freshly painted rear. So I just had to pull it out and make it all snazzy too.

 

How hard was it to make sure you were dead center in the middle of the output shaft?

 

If you are fully concerned that it MUST be dead center, not that hard. If you're not fully concerned and are okay with it being a little off, it's still easy. You have three options really:
1. You can use the pinion as a jig to be 90% sure you're centered by leaving it on while drilling.
2. You can buy their jig for more money and be 100% sure.
3. You can put the pinion on and start on center then take the pinion off for some more working room and end up a little off center. You then get to drill out the pinion a little to make it so the bolt threads in. This still works fine as it's just the bolt that's off center a hair and not the pinion itself since the pinion slides onto the output shaft and that keeps it where it needs to be.

It should be pretty obvious which route I ended up having to go based on the knowledgeable description of Option #3.

 

LOL!!!! Yeah, I figured option 3 came with a bit of experience. I didn't think of just using the pinion as a jig, that would definitely make it close enough. Thanks for the info though.