Im working on norowing my front D44 and have ground the welds off and am trying to beat the old knuckles off with a BFH (2.5 pound variety) and am having no luck. I know this has been talked about here before but can anyone give me some pointers on what they did to get these suckers off:mad:

I just found a killer and easy way. Put a crow bar in the tube, with a little weight angled down on the knuckle. Then get your BFH and hit the housing ear where the ball joint goes through (hit it from the side). Hit the top ear a few times, then the bottom - and repeat until it falls of. Mine were totally seezed up and it only took about 4 to 5 hits for the top and then the bottom ears.

Originally posted by brector
I just found a killer and easy way. Put a crow bar in the tube, with a little weight angled down on the knuckle. Then get your BFH and hit the housing ear where the ball joint goes through (hit it from the side). Hit the top ear a few times, then the bottom - and repeat until it falls of. Mine were totally seezed up and it only took about 4 to 5 hits for the top and then the bottom ears.

Uhhh.... Just what housing did you narrow and have to remove the INNER knuckles form the Tube Brian? :confused:

When I did mine, I just cut the tube off through the weld and then used a sawzall through the knuckle in 4 places and took the tube out in chunks.

Ahhh - I thought he was talking about outer knuckles being stuck on - my bad :D

I did like oldjeep. Cut through the weld with a chopsaw and them removed the tube from the knuckle. Then I cut the tube where it needed to be cut for my desired width. Be sure and measure exactly where your next cut should be before you cut the knuckle off.

The factories get incredible penetration on the welds from knuckle to tube. Even when you think you've ground enough out, there's more. I did much like oldjeep. I factored the overall width I wanted the finished axle, then cut the entire knuckle and small tube portion off right there.

Then I ground out the welds and pressed the remaining tube out of the knuckle (after heating it with a torch) with a 25-ton press. Those knuckles ARE ON THERE. Good luck.
Dion

Be glad it isn't a 60! :eek:
Like Blatant said, the welds have a lot of penetration.
On my one 60, I cut the tube and set it up in a lathe and turned the welds off, took about 10 min.
I missed just a little bit of weld and it made a 100 ton press grunt to 75 ton before it popped.
So get ALL the weld, it will remind you if you don't.
I did other one like Oldjeep, except I used a torch.

LOL. Mine was a 60. Talk about weld penetration. Like you said, if you miss just a little spot of weld, even the press won't work. Actually it's amazing how much you have to grind down into the tube to get all the weld out.
Dion

Exactly, I had undercut almost a full 1/8 into the tube, I remember thinking, "that has to be enough" but I later found out it wasn't.

I found that the weld penatrated further into the knuckle than it did into the tube. The first one took me about an hour to get off. After I did the first one and knew what I was looking for, the second one only took about 25 minutes from start of grinding to knuckle hitting the floor. Angle grinder and a MFH (3 lbs.) was all it took.
http://www.mo-4xtoys.com/torc/yokeoff.jpg
I wasn't narrowing the axle but I found it easier to remove the knuckle and install it in the new position than it was to try to turn the knuckle on the tube.

every time I have removed a knuckle from a 44 of 60 I have ground on the weld all the way around the tube until you see a crack in the weld.Once the crack is aall the way the BFH wins...:D

Same here. 5 pounder wins. If you can't see the crack all the way around don't try the hammer yet.
On my 60, a BIG swing of the hammer got about 2 degrees of rotation, like clockwork.
If you're narrowing not just rotating by all means just whack the damn thing off and press the remnants out. Just don't lose track of your measurements.

Thanks for the tips guys. Iam tired of grinding on this thing up on the rack so I am going to get a chop saw and do it the easy way:D