My D2 axle swap thread

[Kyle_T]

took it for a test drive and i think the t-case is blowing itself apart.... i think one of the output bearings is shot. has a wicked bad vibration and groaning/grinding noise.... edit, it could be the pos tomwood ds i have...

and it pulls left when braking. prob alignment or something.

I dont like how it rides, the front is a little firm but the rear is really harsh. but it doesnt lean to bad in the corners and feels very stable at speed....

[elbekko]

Originally Posted by Kyle_T

and it pulls left when braking. prob alignment or something.

It's a Land Rover. They do that.

[Puffdragon]

Dude, just put this thing out of it's misery! Your just not qualified to build this type of truck for driving on the street's. Your gonna end up killing yourself or worse someone else. If it was a trailer queen I would say keep hacking.

Or, if Sunray is still in business, have it towed over there to inspect it!

[Kyle_T]

meh the fab work is fine. Its something else that's vibrating and I'm not feeling like piling the t case....

Drives well on the high way. Wobble and brake pull are taken care of. I'm going to put it on a lift an d see what is vibrating.

[jeeprover]

If you don't have double cardan drive shafts its more than likely what's causing the vibrations. If it seems to vibrate more coasting not on the gas. Then its the drive shafts.

[Kyle_T]

Yeah I'm wondering that

[Puffdragon]

Double cardan drive shafts should not be needed on a simple axle swap like this unless you got your pinion angles wrong. And in fact a double cardan will cause more problems if your pinion angles are not setup for them.

[Kyle_T]

turns out the rear freakin diff is bad..... holy hell was it loud off the ground. and hoooot too... fluid with less than 1k on it was nearly silver coming out... lame-o.

i have near infinte pinion adjustment so I can get them where they need to be. I pointed the front right at the t-case output and the rear just below... front is a dc at the t-case, rear is a RRC stock shaft. please correct me if this is not right.

[Puffdragon]

Yeah, your pinion's are setup right, but if your gonna use this on the street, slap an accurate angle finder on the flanges to dial them in. Wont matter to much, but it can really smooth out the whole drive train.

[Kyle_T]

Pending wtf i am going to do with the rear diff, im building some sliders. frame mounted. the 2x3.5x.25 runs along the bottom of the sill, while the step/kicker sticks out. no way to bend into the doors, plus will actually take a hit....

pic of the crazy exhaust mock up using cheapo bends. fits pretty well looping around the front of the pan. i need to order some stainless bends to finish it. upper link hits it a little though, but will be fixed with proper bends.....

[Puffdragon]

Nice PepBoys exhaust!!!

[Kyle_T]

no no, it was vatozone!!!

[Kyle_T]

tested it out, 800 miles from home. wheeler lake, holy cross and blanca peak. just a few, have to go through like 1200 pics....

[Dougal]

Originally Posted by Puffdragon

Double cardan drive shafts should not be needed on a simple axle swap like this unless you got your pinion angles wrong. And in fact a double cardan will cause more problems if your pinion angles are not setup for them.

Double cardan joints are constant velocity. They are great if you have DC joints at each end, DC at just one end can get ugly.

[Kyle_T]

oh. and i had the rear diff rebuild 2 times by 2 differnt shops. second fixed it. first set it to no backlash and no pinion preload. but the tcase is bad as in my other posts... i do indeed have a dc front tw shaft, and it sucks. even the driveshaft guy i talked to wouldnt even touch it....

[Kyle_T]

ok, brake work time.


have a hydroboost setup from something or another. i dont think its the astrovan one... but anyways...

it has no vacuum assist any more.

so, an -4 a good size to run? im going to go from the MC, through the slabs (must keep ABS becasue i am a badass and worked waaay to hard to make it work seemlessly), across the firewall to the upper link, down it, then to the wheel hubs to get rid of the stuff outboard to snag. Braided all the way, or harline with braided at the flex points???

[kaiserdtm]

Id recommend trussing and armoring that housing. Otherwise this is a sweet ass Disco!!

[Kyle_T]

Originally Posted by kaiserdtm

Id recommend trussing and armoring that housing. Otherwise this is a sweet ass Disco!!

you know, i almost did, but it is "braced" from the factory (whatever you want to call it, truss on the bottom) and pretty dang thick. i want to armour the front eventually. I figured for all the 80's ive seen beat the hell out of the front axles and not have any issues, i would run it as is for a while. i wheel pretty carefully though.


thanks for the compliment.

[Kyle_T]

bump for thread merge and A kaboom front diff...

swapped the t-case out, solved some of the noise, but the Front DS is a POS, and front diff is making all kinds of noise now... feels like the pinion is loose.... it was rebuilt 5kish ago when I put it together.... same shop that tanked the rear diff by putting new bearings in and not setting preload or the backlash, they ran them together, the gears were knife edge. so im betting the front might be the same...


upper link on diff


upper at frame


exhaust reroute and upper on diff. funky angle