[jeepbeater]

I sold the 9" rear out of the jeep last night and some guys stopped by the shop and asked me if I'd be inetersted in a pair Rockwells out of a Deuce and a Half. Rebuilt with soemthing like 6.17 gears. Wants $1500 for them complete with brakes.

Has anyone had any experience with these installing them in a CJ? I am serious debating this instead of installing the D60 & Corp 14 bolt I picked up 2 months ago. The ground clearance of the rockwells looks to be a little better than the D60(Without shaving).

Am looking for some info--the guy who has them hmade a jig and is able to narrow them with good results.

Little help please

John

 

[kutyafal]

C'mon guys, this is definitely hard core (read not JU) topic. Give the guy a little help. I'm just trying to help you out John. <IMG SRC="smilies/smile.gif" border="0"> You might want to give the guys at Avalanche Engineering a call to see if they're in the mood to divulge some of their secrets. I suggest call Fri. night after beer time. <IMG SRC="smilies/smile.gif" border="0">

Tibor

 

[Flip1YJ]

Haven't done this, but have looked into it a bit. Apparently if you do a disk brake swap, you end up close to the 14 bolt for weight. You have to pay close attention to your clearance on upward travel because of the top loader configuration, Gearing will be a concern depending on what size tire you run, I never checked into what gear sets are avaliable, but if its anything like Moog axles, you can be stuck with off road only gearing.

Not much, but hope it gives a starting point.

 

[patooyee]

There is only the one gearset available for them. 6.72, or something like that. I've never heard of anyone narrowing them successfully, but by taking the brakes off and running the pinion-mounted brakes in the front, they end up at 72" wide I've heard. In the rear, they end up like 68" wide. That's 1.5" wider on each side than 1-ton Chevy stuff in the front and about the same as Chevy stuff in the rear. This difference is why people normally run rear steering and just use two fronts. Also, I'm not sure where the year break is, but some had weaker 18-spline shafts, or something like that. If you get the weak shafts, it ends up being not much stronger than a regular d60 front. Call Boyce and ask them about all of this.

J. J.

 

[jeepbeater]

The guy has some 44 swampers to go with it. I was thinking of ditching the brakes and go to a driveline brake set up to reduce a little bit of the weight and pull the wheels in a bit more. Standard these things are like 8 ft wide.

Appreciate the help. I think I may be sitting down and drinking a few <IMG SRC="smilies/beer.gif" border="0"> <IMG SRC="smilies/beer.gif" border="0"> to figure out the cost $$$$ differences between the 2 options. Apparently detroits are $400 for the top loaders.

[ 10-22-2001: Message edited by: Boring ]

 

[jeepbeater]

Thanks. I'll be calling Boyce and Memphis Equipment to see what they'll divulge.

John

 

[gunracer1]

you can hit a guy here on the board. he goes under elf cruiser. hooked me up with a lot of good info on rockwells. also try a search on the general board. i posted a ? about 1 month ago. you can run 15 in wheels if you pull off all the stock brake stuff and go with a pinion disk. the gearing is 6.72 and you can get detroits from boyce for about 600.00 but i think you can beat that if you shop around. later mike

 

[jeepbeater]

Cool--Was just looking for thoughts. THe guys that have all this stuff are into the monster truck stuff and have a lot of useful parts and knowledge on getting these under the truck.
Looks like I am probably goign to run the d60 and 14 bolt and put the Rockwells under another guys jeep. He's got a little more disposable income than I do to throw at it. He want s to be as close to bullet proof as possible.

 

[Lowrangerider]

You can have rockwells narrowed by the way. Boyce does it.

 

[patooyee]

Last time I called Boyce they did not narrow them by any other means than taking the brakes off or inverting the bearings and stuff like that. I hear Avalanche is narrowing them now, but only on their custom built ones. This may have changed, though.

J. J.

 

[vvws3]

Duece and a halfs are the way to go. You can have them narrowed so that both sides use the short side shafts. You will start seeing alot more of these under trail rigs. The strength is awesome and they can be high clearenced. Boyce is best source for information on these. Go with the dif. brake and hydraulic steering. Boyce has the brackets for everything related to these axles. The price you were offered is pretty good if you have fabrication skills and facilities. However you can get 2 complete steering axles from boyce with every thing for under 6K. I hear about some people spending that on a single 60. So you tell me where the smart money is going to spend. <IMG SRC="smilies/bounce.gif" border="0"> <IMG SRC="smilies/bounce2.gif" border="0"> <IMG SRC="smilies/bounce.gif" border="0">

 

[wanderingwillys]

Military surplus lots have them for about 300 - 450 each for the fronts, the fronts already have the hubs flipped (so no cheap tricks to narrow them), and you can indeed run 15" wheels with the brakes gone uses a large 6 bolt pattern 8" center to center IIRC, they run a tie rod behind the housing and use a rectangular tube housing. I have seen some narrowed, I would truss the crap out of the section you remove as you will have to butt weld the sections back together. Detriots are the only locker available 385 each last I checked with Randy's, 6.72 is the only ratio, You can also take some of the bowl out for better clearence, stock is .5" better than a D60; nice and rounded too. Top loader puts some limits on up travel but you reap the benefits with driveline angle. I can't wait until Avalanche gets their sh!t together and builds a rockwell with Highmark outers or mog outers, you would need no lift at all <IMG SRC="smilies/pissed.gif" border="0"> Big $$$ though. Home jobs could be done for less than 1600 total with dual steer hydro set up.... My 43 MB is getting that treatment in about 6 mos

Matt