It looks Great!

Jeeps need a little color....

You need to stencil "Brembo" on that brake cylinder....

Ryan, I'm thinking that the Jeep poster hanging up in your garage needs a new home.  I would humbly offer some wall space in my office to take that off your hands....

I really like the red wheels on it.  Looks great!

It's time to give the rear axle a good follow-up vist and address anything I skipped (pretty much everything except the brakes) during the initial overhaul.

Drums are off with this handy-dandy puller courtesy of BMIC (you can finally have it back now, Bruce...). If you're using anything other than one of the pullers to remove rear drums you are wasting your time.



I removed the rear differential cover for a quick peek and noticed some significant play in the small spider gears.



From a couple other threads and some additional online research it is clear that I definitely have a problem. I've been skirting the idea of a differential rebuild out of sheer intimidation but I'm tired of dreading it. Time to conquer the demon. Let's get to it.



I don't have a slide hammer but I found that by attaching the drums to the axle shaft I could use a block of wood behind the drums and with a few solid whacks from a BFH the axles popped right out.

Bearing caps removed and labeled. Don't mix these up!!



Axle housing on the operating table. The manual calls for a spreader but states a couple pry bars will do the trick when removing the carrier. I can vouch for that substitution.





Here's the offening spider gears. No real obvious problems but I will likely replace them.




More poor man's tools.

A large pipe wrench works well to hold the yoke while removing the nut. Be sure too leave those little u-bolts in place. They will protect the thin metal of the yoke from damage should the pipe wrench slip (ask me how I learned this).



Next up is a 2-jaw puller to remove the yoke. This thing fought back pretty hard. I find it amusing that in the Moses Ludel book he has pictures of a 12-yr old kid zipping this yoke off like nothing. I suggest in the next printing that the kid should be covered in blood, sweat, and grease for a more realistic representation.



I gently tapped, and then smashed the pinion out of the housing with a BFH and a brass drift.

Alternating various length "punches", I removed all the bearing races and the axle seals. Here's the longest reach - going all the way through the axle to get one of the outer grease seals. A couple taps and it popped right out.



Here's one of the races from the differential. Does this count as wear? Yikes.



So here's everything laid out.




I don't own a bearing puller of any type so I need to get one to complete the disassembly. I'll clean and inspect and then place an order for any new parts required. I'm still apprehensive about putting this thing back together. When I see words like "endplay" and "shims" and "bearing preload" I get nervous. Has anyone found a definitive "how-to" guide on a Dana 44 rebuild? There's plenty of resources for bits and pieces but no one-stop-shopping for how to really get it done. Demon conquered or not, I'd rather not be back here anytime soon - not on the same axle at least.

If I was in your shoes, it looks to me and Bruce W. too, that your spider gears are worn which allows the play you found. I've seen spider gear kits with new shims and gears, which would solve that problem. If you take things down, make sure you keep all the shims and locations documented.  The caps that hold the carrier in are marked with a circle that is vertical or sideways and so is the housing. ( mine were anyway). Looks like you are replacing bearings and races too. You are going to learn allot. Toe, Heel , backlash, depth all work together to get the right pattern on the ring and pinion. I know you can easily put 300.00 in just bearings into it. You might consider another rear end that is good if you know of any. You can fix yours, it's only money!  John

We did ONE rear end in college, and it was pretty much just a take it apart and reassemble job.  The main problem areas that you must get right are pinion preload and ring gear/pinion mesh. A lot of guys bring their rears to folks that do them all the time, as it is such finicky work.

A lot of times you read about having a set of setup bearings so you don't have to keep pressing new bearings on and off as you try out different shim packs to get the pattern and preload right. If you are replacing your old bearings use them to make setup bearings out of as long as they are still intact. (You'll need to hone out the center holes so they slip on instead of having to press them on.)

Good luck with it. Good pictures as you go and a little typing and you could make your very own rebuild guide and be as famous as Rick Stivers....If you decide to do that we have a good place for it in the FAQ section or even the home page..

Now you won't be happy until you rebuild the front one.