Simon
Buy a used birfield, have Travis take it apart & inspect it, complete his treatment and ask him carefully to assemble the birfield. On the 5 I had him do, all the inner spider gear splines were burred. Looks like he use a drift to assemble the birfs, which burred the leading spline edge. It was a quick fix to file the splines clean again to insert the inner axle.
To preserve your "Smurfield", you need to asseble the inner axle without the inner Cir-Clip. You need to place a small weld on the axle spline that engages the differential spider gears. This can be done on the axle shaft that doesn't engage the front electric locker. The weld keeps the axle from traveling into the differential.
The reason for not installing the Cir-Clip is that the inner axle breaks at the spline. With the Cir-Clip installed the broken axle stub is very difficult to remove from the birfield inner race / cage, since the birfield can be reused. The main function of the Cir-Clip is to keep the inner axle shaft from riding into the differential side gears, etc.
You can install the clip without changing the characteristics of the new improved birfield. Grease the smurfed 80 birf [like you would a new bearing], install into axle / maybe a new inner axle seal, and relax with a #6, since you are not going to break that birfield again!
Joe
Buy a used birfield, have Travis take it apart & inspect it, complete his treatment and ask him carefully to assemble the birfield. On the 5 I had him do, all the inner spider gear splines were burred. Looks like he use a drift to assemble the birfs, which burred the leading spline edge. It was a quick fix to file the splines clean again to insert the inner axle.
To preserve your "Smurfield", you need to asseble the inner axle without the inner Cir-Clip. You need to place a small weld on the axle spline that engages the differential spider gears. This can be done on the axle shaft that doesn't engage the front electric locker. The weld keeps the axle from traveling into the differential.
The reason for not installing the Cir-Clip is that the inner axle breaks at the spline. With the Cir-Clip installed the broken axle stub is very difficult to remove from the birfield inner race / cage, since the birfield can be reused. The main function of the Cir-Clip is to keep the inner axle shaft from riding into the differential side gears, etc.
You can install the clip without changing the characteristics of the new improved birfield. Grease the smurfed 80 birf [like you would a new bearing], install into axle / maybe a new inner axle seal, and relax with a #6, since you are not going to break that birfield again!
Joe
