getting the spindle out and progress report on Grand Wagoneer swap

["Chad Lloyd" <clloyd@xxxxxxxxx>]

Jeepers;

After 8 weeks of not really getting much done (due to not being able to find
much time to do it), I finally feel like I'm making progress on my axle
swap, so I just hafta share. I realize that for you more experienced guys
this will probably be REALLY boring, but for me, whose biggest
accomplishment before this was helping/watching Dave Moulton change my throw
out bearing, this is major.

Got the rear Grand Wagoneer axle all cut down - spring perches cut off,
shock mounts cut off, track bar brackets cut off, and everything ground
clean. This was mostly due to Rico's help, cuz I couldn't get the spring
perches off at first, which held me up for about two weeks (I was worried
about cutting too far into the tube with the zip disk), till he came over
and showed me the proper technique, which basically involved beating the
living sh!@ out of it with a hammer and punch (after the welds were ground
off as much as possible). Thanks Rico.

Yesterday I  ground off 3/4 inch of the front housing beside the driver's
spring perch so we can move the front perches in 1/2  - 3/4 inch inch
(haven't done the exact measurement yet). Went a lot easier than I thought -
course I'm getting a little better at this cut it with a zip disk thing now.
Dave came by so just for curiosity sake we measured the front shock mounts,
and lo and behold they are pretty close - exactly the same actually, but we
can't be sure because we were measuring over the diff hump so we had to
kinda guesstimate about 1/2 an inch of it. Anyway, I'm going to leave them
on and see how they look when we bolt it up.

Funny thing is that with no garage and snow all over the place, I laid a
tarp in my driveway, and put the axle on stands on top of the tarp. When I'm
finished for the day I roll the sides of the tarp over the axle and weigh it
down with various jeep parts so it won't blow away. So at night it looks
like I've got a dead body rolled in a tarp in my driveway.

Got the hub caps off, hubs out, springs out, hub nuts out, calipers off,
rotors off, caliper hangers off. Can't get the spindle off. It is majorly
rusted on there - actually everything was majorly rusted on there. The
hanger nuts took like 3 hours, as each one I had to pound a 13mm socket on
(don't know if that is the right size, too rusty, call it 'rust size'),
grunt and groan for 5 minutes to break it free, 10 seconds to get the nut
almost off, grunt and groan for 5 minutes getting the nut out of the socket,
2 minutes wondering why I got myself into this, on to the next nut......

Anyway, once I get the spindles out I can remove the axle shafts, the
carrier, and take it over to Rico's (a lot lighter with no gears, axles or
brakes) to get the spring hangers adjusted, then paint it and take it to get
the lockers and gears installed....... once I get the spindles off. If
anyone has any words of wisdom about how to get rusty spindles out, other
than 'beat on it', let me know. I'm just taking a breather for 5 minutes
........ then  I'm going to beat on them.

So basically the rear axle is ready to go, and the front is getting there.
I'm hoping to take it over to Rico's (my friend who is a fabricator)
tomorrow so
that he can move the perches for me. Starting to look like I might actually
get this thing up and running before June.

Of course, now that THIS appears to moving along, I've started to think
about gearing (need more crawl ratio)..... had a look at Chris Waterman's
setup - that is ultimately what I really want to do, but considering that it
took me eight weeks to grind off 7 brackets, I don't think I'm ready for all
the custom machining involved. Went looking for a similar bolt up solution.
Wild Horses sells an np435/203/D20 setup kit that goes for $1200 us, Off
Road Design has an sm465/203/205 kit that is only $700, but it's WAY too
long, Klune V, NV4500, and Atlas are all WAY out of my price range......
keeping me awake at night. DOH!

Thanks for letting me vent, and if anyone about the spindle, let me know.

Chad