Ruffstuff full float conversion (1 Viewer)

[Stumpalama]

i wish i didn't waste my money on the flanges from rough stuff.. and i should have bought them from the originators at Diamond axle anyways.. i always love to support the vendors of original products over someone who copied another persons idea so i don't know what the heck i was doing when i bought these.. at the time it seemed like it would be a cheap and easy way to build a full floater out of one of my spare diffs.. i too struggled with the idea of how to weld the ends on straight and when i talked to Dan he suggested that i get an aligning bar to help with the job and it should be easy.. well, i am not a machine shop nor do i have access to an aligning bar so this kind of ended up being a waste of time and money for me.. i thought of just trying to assemble everything and weld it on the end of the axle tube but i fell there is too much slop in all of the parts to truely get a perfect level fit.... the other issue i had was with the seals.. Dan suggested that i get some type of seal that just plugs into the end of the axle tube and it would seal on the axle shaft as well... this is a lousy idea.. i cant remember the brand name of seal he told me to buy.. maybe its raceway or something like that?? i cant remember now.. this was over a year ago now.... super lame anyways.. i really liked Brian's idea from diamond axle seal assembly where the seal takes the place of the brass bushing inside the hub.. I don't think he was selling them seperate at the time though.. is he now?? i dunno.. i just ended up being annoyed at the whole process of trying to build a full floater and i don't have much time now a days anyways to dedicate to the idea so i ended up just cutting the full floater ends off of a spare 80 series full floater diff and sending them to Brian at Diamond axle to build me the full floater that i wanted.. for the 900 bucks and the extremely nice product in the end it was worth it and it was a lot less hassle.. i went with the cut to length 80 series axles from nitro and got Brian to cut them for me... this all being said, does anyone want to buy my flanges?? i will never use them.. shipping from Canada will probably kill the deal though..

Wow... sounds like a RS/ Dan bashing rant more than anything else. How can you say that the diamond axle bracket is any better than the RS bracket if you haven't worked with the diamond axle bracket? What makes the diamond axle bracket so much better than the RS bracket?
Nothing that requires a certain level fabrication is ever "cheap" or "easy". It may cost less than buying a prefabricated custom product, but I would never use the term "cheap".

In short, your thread added zero value to this discussion because it's all lost in your complaining. Let's see if I can distill this down a bit to the useful info:

i don't know what the heck i was doing when i bought these.. at the time it seemed like it would be a cheap and easy way to build a full floater out of one of my spare diffs.. i too struggled with the idea of how to weld the ends on straight and when i talked to Dan he suggested that i get an aligning bar to help with the job and it should be easy.. i don't have access to an aligning bar so this kind of ended up being a waste of time and money for me.. i thought of just trying to assemble everything and weld it on the end of the axle tube but i fell there is too much slop in all of the parts to truely get a perfect level fit.... the other issue i had was with the seals.. Dan suggested that i get some type of seal that just plugs into the end of the axle tube and it would seal on the axle shaft as well... i just ended up being annoyed at the whole process of trying to build a full floater so i ended up just cutting the full floater ends off of a spare 80 series full floater diff and sending them to Brian at Diamond axle to build me the full floater that i wanted.. for the 900 bucks and the extremely nice product in the end it was worth it and it was a lot less hassle.. i went with the cut to length 80 series axles from nitro and got Brian to cut them for me...

Maybe a bit more to the point:

i don't know what the heck i was doing

 

[fj-rankenstein]

I am sorry for the big rant... I can perhaps see how too many words might be too tough to read through for a guy like yourself which leads to the a**hole comments.. i will try to rephrase everything here with less complaining because I for sure must be the first person to ever have frustration over a product that ended up being a lot more work than initially thought.. i am not sure if you are referencing my use of the word "cheap" as in quality or as in overall pricetag.. i guess i was caught up in the hard sell from Dan when talking to him on the phone regarding these flanges.. he made the overall process sound like it was a cakewalk to do.. (which i can see being so if you have access to the right tools but at the time i did not..) the overall price of these are cheap in comparison to buying a pre-made housing but at the time there is a lot more involved with this whole conversion than just welding a couple flanges on the end of a tube, cutting some axle shafts and throwing them in and calling it a day.. at the time there was no real good solution from Dan for putting axle shaft seals into a stock diff and using these flanges... there was also the issue of knowing where to put the smooth seal surface on the custom axle shafts so that the axle seal could have a place to actually ride on.. the thought for myself back in the day was to buy the flanges from dan and then buy the seal adapters and axle shafts from Brian at diamond but Brian wasnt selling them separate so that kind of killed that idea.. i had seen lots of pics of the Diamond axle seal adapters and wanted to build a set but again, at the time i didnt have access to a lathe..


my initial thought when i first bought these flanges were that i could build a quick, cheap and easy full floater diff.. i had bought the flanges from dan at Roughstuff from one of the many sales that he offers.. they were a nice piece.. very nicely machined and all holes drill precisely..
my first thought (along with many other peoples first thoughts regarding these flanges) was to figure out how to weld the flanges on squarely to the end of the axle tube.. dan had suggested that i get an aligning bar that goes all the way through the diff and it would be held by the 3rd member bearing caps with a jig that i would have to make.. with this aligning bar I could both check how straight i cut the end of the axle tube and also be able to use it to check for squareness on the ends when i weld my flanges on.. at the time i didnt have access to a machine shop or a real acurate way to do this job properly..
two thoughts had come to me.. i was going to try to just wing it and install everything on the ends and let the parts kind of align themsleves and i would weld things as they sat.. the other way was that i was going to take a straight piece of dom tubing and pay a machine shop to machine the ends to fit inside the spindle bores, bolt those spindles onto the flanges and maybe that would align things close enough to be able to weld things on straight... the trick here was that this was going onto a daily driver and i thought that any misalignment would cause excess wear on the bearings, spider gears, etc.. if it was a trail truck i probably would have just went for it and welded it up..

I was mistaken on the name of the seals that Dan suggested.. Looking back at my notes from talking with Dan on the Phone the name that he suggested was Speedway.. here is the link..
http://www.speedwaymotors.com/Seals...nner-Axle-Seal-for-25-275-Inch-Tube,5298.html


now as far as both the Roughstuff brackets and the diamond axle flanges.. i have had both physically in my hands and both companies make a nice piece.. the thing with the roughstuff stuff is that there is a lot more prep work involved with trying to make these right and a lot of things to take into account like the things that i mentioned in the last couple of sentences of the first paragraph above.. i had the chance to purchase the "full floater chunks" kit from a fellow wheeler that was going a different direction and I would say that Brians kit is a bolt on kit and made to go together easy and all the pieces are there.. you are paying a lot more for that kit though.. you will end up paying just as much for the roughstuff flanges though too by the time you factor all the things you will need to buy to make it "complete" and in the end still not have as thought out of a kit as the Diamond stuff.. the Diamond axle kit is just a cleaner more thought out design in my opinion.. that seal adapter is a great design and a great idea over trying to install a universal type seal in a metric tube and try to make everything fit properly... both have their pros and cons though and depending on your skill level and what access you have to machine shops or machine tools is something to think about..

As for Dan... my post wasnt a Rs/dan bashing thread.. i have bought thousands of dollars of stuff from him and he makes a great product. i was more frustrated with getting caught up in the hard sell he puts on though when talking to him on the phone and then realizing afterwards that i didnt have the time nor the resources to build a diff with these flanges at the time.. at least not to be able to do the job right.. the skill is more than there though...

and as for you stumpalama... i am always up for discussing different ways to fabricate something.. i have outlined what pros and cons i thought someone would have to deal with when looking at these flanges.. i would love to see whatever writeup you were planning to do once you find the time....... time...... its always about the time.. i wish i had more of it..

 

[Stumpalama]

I will put my reading comprehension skills up against almost anyone's. That being said, I appreciate the more thorough explanation, it clears up several points. You brought up many issues that I have been considering, like the axle seal and alignment/jig issues.

I don't trust my fabrication skills enough to attempt to install Dan's brackets. I chose to go with LCWizard's (4Plus) FF brackets since they index off the machined axle lip and come with aluminum inserts and Marlin axle seals to seal the axle. I'm pretty sure it is still going to require an alignment bar to get it just right. They are still in the box and waiting for my move before I dive into it. I have everything except the alignment bar/jigs and inner axles.

A soon to be released option for LC's is Diamond Axles (marketed and sold by FROR) bolt on FF bracket. As you probably know, they already have them for Mini-trucks and 4Runners.

I will do a write-up once I get set up in my new place. I may invest in a jig and depending on how the 1st one goes, offer to build FF's for fellow club members and maybe others.

 

[Chris Wilcox]

For an axle seal on a custom length shaft you could do what I did. Press fit a ring onto the shaft at the correct location. Then slightly machine the od down to size to fit a speedi-sleeve. Use green loctite for installation of these parts. Then you simply use a stock land cruiser seal and the speedisleeve is replaceable if you ever need to.

 

[Fast Eddy]

When Bobby Long made my custom shaft, he welded a ring onto the shaft and turned it down to the correct size to match the original shaft; no speedi-sleeve.

 

[Stumpalama]

Apparently, the chromo axles are pretty smooth and could be polished to make the surface even smoother.

 

[fj-rankenstein]

Okay. ..so I had to come out to my shop and have a look at some axle shafts. I have a few of the newest shafts from diamond which are also the same as what would have come from Bobby long (rip ) and also are used by rcv. .. the shafts themselves would probably be more than smooth enough to have a seal ride anywhere on them.. the issue is that there is a raised part in the shaft for where the seal is actually supposed to ride. .. I stuck a marlin crawler seal on the shaft just on a random spot away from the raised section of where it's actually supposed to ride... what I found is that the seal still holds onto the shaft with enough pressure where I think it might actually seal for a while. .. the problem is that the outer lip doesn't actually make contact with the shaft so it wouldn't work for long if you tried. .. the axle seal really needs to be on that raised portion of the axle shaft. ...here are a few pics. ..

 

[fj-rankenstein]

That last pic of the seal outer lip not sealing on the axle shaft sucked. ..here is a better close up. . And here is also another pic showing the seal in its proper place on the raised part of the shaft. .