65 FJ40 - Doing it the Easy Way

[brian]

And X never ever marks the spot.

 

[TreadingLight]

Once the excavation was complete (enough), I rolled the new axle into place, cleaned the diff and painted it up.

Ooooh, shiny.

But then i had to get the old axle out. I quickly found that it hadn't been apart in decades. The springs, shackles, bushings, and pins are fused together into some unholy rust/steel/rubber sedimentary rock. The front hanger pins are blocked by the exhaust headers. And the spring plates are bent, making the ubolts a chore.

Glad to see this 40 was used enough to bounce off something hard. Hope it was a rock and not some playground equipment.

Bringing down the hammer.

It is fighting me every step of the way. I considered letting some suspension scope creep into the project and get new shackles, springs and bushings.

But no. Later. After I drive it and know more about what I want.

So for now i want to reuse the old s***. I decided to just drop the shackles, slide the built axle into place, and bolt it back up.

But the shackles wouldn't cooperate.

Screw you shackles!

I don't want to start a rubber fire in the garage to burn them out, so this is what I've settled on.

• Chop off shackle using grinder. Bonus points for insufficient PPE.
• Use hammer and drift and EMT conduit scraps to pound the bushings/pin out of the hanger on the frame.
• Attack visible bits of bushing with 1/8" drill bits to weaken it. Break 2 bits per bushing.
• Use tie rod puller to force the pin and bushings out of the spring

This is taking a while. We'll see if i get it wrapped up today.

One side done.

 

[TreadingLight]

It ate 3 more drill bits and the forcing screw tip on the puller. Definitely using greasable shackles and pins in the future.

The aftermath.

I took the old housing out and drained some more sludge. I'm going to bring it and the rest of the original axles to the Valley Hybrids Swap Meet and hopefully not bring them home.

All this and more could be yours!

And while I still have some work to do on the axles/suspension, I'm also turning some attention to brake lines. Since the old lines are ancient, I plan to replace them all. And since i'm adding a dual circuit master cylinder and newer axle housings, i think it makes most sense to model the routing on a 1976ish disc brake 40.

Something like this:

Along the firewall

Front axle

To the rear

Dang that's a lot of fittings to track down. I imagine I'll need a proportioning valve. And I need to get soft lines.

I was just at a lowrider car show so I have visions of stainless steel braided lines and chromed engine bays. A guy can dream ...

 

[TreadingLight]

Inspiration

 

[TreadingLight]

Time to assemble the rear axle. Of course it is presenting some mysteries.

The threads on one of the spindles were pretty mangled. Patience and a thread file took care of that.

Then I went through my collection of axle bits and bobs to make sure I had the right parts.

Earlier in the thread I mentioned this appeared to be a late 70s 40 series FF rear. It has an 8-bolt flange so I figured that would mean the smaller style spindle, early style bearing adjuster, and the axle seal integrated into the nut.

Like this: https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/full-float-axle-infrequently-asked-questions.962126/#post-10698332

But I seem to have an 8-bolt 40 series FF axle with the larger spindle that shares parts with the late 40/60/70/80.

While confusing, this is a good thing as I was going to have to do a lot of hunting to find the early style bearing adjuster, and now i can share parts with the troopy.

Later adjuster threads on

Takes the later axle seal (just a test fit, I'll press it flush).

The early spindle should be the same size as a front. Mine is not, proven by this front wheel bearing nut being too small.

 

[TreadingLight]

Any thoughts from the peanut gallery? I've never see or read of an 8-bolt FF rear with the later spindle.

What did this axle come from?

 

[TreadingLight]

I'm pushing to get this thing rolling, with a stretch goal of running, so I can move it to a new spot and tackle some fab work.

Progress up front. Tldr; front axle is reinstalled.

I still need to connect brake lines, mount wheels, reattach the front driveshaft, fill with fluids, and re-torque everything.

I kinda hoped I could use this 70 series front brakeline, but this axle housing is lacking any and all mounting points. I'll tackle adding some later.

For now, quick n dirty.

Starting from the caliper, I dunno if this retaining bracket is bent or oriented funny but using a 12" steel line from Oreilly's, I bent this hard-line to do a 180. The soft line (a Dorman H6937, 10" overall) is not in the greatest position either, but it doesn't stretch or pinch so I'm moving on.

OK, so this is ugly. Embarrassingly so. I will address this later. But anyhow, I needed a coupler for the male hose end to the male hard-line fitting, so this one is held in place by zip-ties. Same thing on the other side.

I don't have a bracket with a captive nut on top of the housing to use the more common bracket for this t-fitting. I took this one from a breather so it already had a 3/8" hole. I reshaped the bracket so it could fit on a diff nut, and bent the bracket in a vice to point it to the rear.

I ran the rest of the lines using the easily bendable copper-nickel tube and terminated using a bench vise flaring tool.

Since I have no mounting points or clamps on the housing, I got these 3/16" tube clamps with 3/8" mounting holes from inline tube.

The breather is from a 60 series.

Much of this will need to be redone, but if it doesn't leak, maybe I'll drive it rather than tow it.