Now, we have a change of parts coming up. These are the inner yokes / inner knuckles from a CJ D30







Cut the extra tube off ..... ground tube flush with the forging .... and then weld a bead on the inside of whatever tube is left. As the weld cools, it will shrink and pull the tubing away from the yoke. When it cools ... press it out. And be ready for a *pop* that will scare the **** out of you.








Here is the remainder of the tube after it has been pressed out.






And a good comparison shot






Please folks ... do yourself a favor and keep these things on the ground until you need them. I left one on the table while I was cutting the other yoke. The vibration made it skip across and land on my pinky toe. There is no smiley suitable to convey my feelings/thoughts/pain.

 

Next up .... I had to remove the old inner yokes (knuckles, C's, whatever you want to call them).



There are so many ways to do this .. it's not even funny. I chose to cut a notch through the material .. so I could see how far the weld penetrated. Then I cut behind the weld and down to the tube surface. To give myself some working room ... i cut off the extra "legs" that were in the way.






Once you get it cut up .. you can simply pound off what's left of the yoke. Clean up the tubes of any welds left over.









Ever wonder what a naked Dana 30 looks like ?






Puny little son-of-gun

 

Very nice man. Why are you using the CJ 30 inner c's?

 

He is fixing the yoke angle to point the pinion towards the TC, lol...
I predict at least 6in of lift...

 

D30 C's will give you the ability to *** larger wheel bearings and lock outs.

Cool if that's why your doing so..

 

The CJ (traditional) balljoint design is better all the way around. Stronger, better support, and easier to service (just a little slower).


Not to mention the ability to run true lockout hubs and a greater choice of knuckles to pick from.


On top of that ... I can run 1/2 or 3/4 ton brakes for greater stopping power.


And lastly ... there is less stress on your front axle shafts. On a "unit bearing" setup ... the axle shaft has vehicle weight on it (in addition to being torqued down to keep the unit bearing together. With a traditional spindle setup .... the axle shaft does nothing except transfer the torque. The spindle (and the correspondingly wider spaced bearings) do a better job of supporting the vehicle weight.




Joe

 

Nope ... that's too tall.


And why would I need to switch yokes to do a cut/turn for pinion & caster correction?



See the post above for my reasons.



Joe

 

Wel you will certainly improve the angle now that you have them off, no?
5?

 

No ... I intend to run 3 degrees of negative camber. Just to spite your overly schooled azz.



I will be running a lowered setup. Should be about 7/8 lower than stock height when I'm done.




Joe

 

I know you will change the angle, you can't resist, ahah, you must modify every single atom of your Jeep ahahahaah... i'm sure lol...

 

This isn't Joe's Bakery !






Bake the yokes to get them nice and hot. The heat helps the hole expand so you have a *little* more room to position the yoke. Move quick ... because once it starts cooling, it feels like you are dealing with an interference fit.



In my case ... I already knew roughly where the yokes needed to sit. However, I left them unwelded so I can get final caster numbers *after* the rest of the truck is finished (so to speak).








This is a "famous" maker truss that I have found to be an almost complete piece of junk. The truss was sent to me with mis-matched UCA mounts, a crooked & bent track bar mount, and did not sit square on the tubes. And I had to re-do some of their welds. Basically, enough time went into it -- that I call it my own.

 

I normally am not a fan or proponent of the parts made & sold by Clayton's ... however, I have to admit these are the nicest coil spring mounts I've seen. I like the idea of no metal-to-metal contact offered by this setup. Definitely not cheap, but should keep squeeks and major clangs down. You can also see how I had to shorten and reshape the driver side of the truss to make room for a coil mount (and correct the twist in the truss body).


That shiny brass thing is my ARB port. I have tapped it from both directions so that I can use flared fittings instead of the supplied ferrules. Makes removal a cinch.










Truss is welded on, as are the coil spring mounts. I have not fixed the track bar mount as this point.







Everyone knows how the factory UCA's mount to the axle. The bushing is pressed into the cradle and the arm sits around it. In my opinion, this isn't the best design. In particular, with the cast in mount (driver side) you are limited to one angle unless you choose to bent offset tabs or cope the tube differently. Bushing replacement is also a well documented aggravation.


As such, I decided to make my own design. The tab was made with additional holes to offer adjustable anti-dive properties (we will discuss this later in the thread). And I wanted to make sure I had the proper amount of vertical separation (again --- we address this later).


So ... we have tabs looking like this !






And, when welded up to the truss (with braces, of course) .... it looks like this





I am going to be using a LCA bushing in that bracket assembly rather than the smaller UCA bushing that is normally used.

 

I will say this much ... the design / concept of the truss is very good. The execution is very weak.


Why is it good ?


If you look at the pictures, you can see it mounts just about at the centerline of the tubes. What that means is, as you weld, you have *less* of a chance of the axle pulling in the direction of the weld or truss. A poorly designed/installed truss can result in a housing that curls upwards or "smiles." Obviously, to keep this housing straight, the truss needs to sit squarely on the housing. As I mentioned in the last post, that was not the case here and I had to take steps to correct that.


The other nice thing is how it effectively ties both sides of the housing together (rather than just being an UCA mount). And by welding the tubes to the centersection, I have dramatically increased the stiffness of the entire assembly without warping or dimensionally changing the housing.


Much how the D35 suffers from a weak housing (which causes most of the shaft snapping issues) ... a D30 can benefit from a stiffer structure. By and large, they are sufficiently stiff for most applications --- but I wanted to have a little bit of fun with the welder & some ideas in my head.


Later in this thread .. you will see the other truss that I actually made (from scratch).



Joe

 

Damn, all the welds looks good!

 

How did you measure the angle between the two tubes? I think there is a tolerance of about 0.5° - 1° from factory plus the bending under normal condition driving. I have seen axles with more than 3° of bending and still doing fine. There is quite much tolerance in the planetary splines.
The tooling of the tube housings should have +0.030/0 (H7) tolerance and concentricity tolerance is 0.02
Surface finish of the tooled parts is 3.2(vvv)
Nice welds.

Did you cut off the stock casted UCA mount on the housing?


The semi-axle shafts snap for excessive torsion, when the housing doesn't break, usually where the thinner section is at the splines.