Pictures of your Waggy front axle brackets?

Anybody got some pictures of your wagoneer front axle swap? I'm working on putting one from an 81 into my rig, but I'm a little bit confused on how to mount the coil bucket and control arm mount on the driver's side... reason being that there is a large cast spring pad there and the diff. housing is much wider on that side that the other.

Does anybody have any pics of how they tackled this problem on a Waggy axle? I've seen the thread with pictures of two seperate HP44 axle swaps, but the HP44 housing doesn't have the extra material here like the Waggy axle does. Those of you who've done this swap with coils... did you grind the cast housing back to the same width as the pass. side, or more? Did it provide enough room to mount the coil bucket and control arm mount without having to weld to the cast?

Thanks everyone for your help on this... this is the first time I've done this big of a project with my rig, it's going smoothly so far, I'm mocking up all of my mounts with cardboard and tape so I know how much steel I need to buy, just need to figure out how to work with the driver's side.

I know people have done this swap with coils... do I just have a turd axle or something and no one else has this stupid spring pad cast in, or what? I'm mostly concerned with how I am going to mount the lower control arm mount on the driver's side, the coil bucket I figure I will just get some hi-nickel rod and weld half of it to the cast part and half to the regular axle tube.

Anyone?

Impatient much??? You posted 4 hours ago. Give it some time!

There's a reason not many peolpe bother with these axles. You're not gaining much by going to a low-pinion D44 front from a high-pinion D30. Most would agree that the effort is not worth the reward with a LP, that's why they use a HP.

Give it a few days... uncommon mods like these might take a few days to get replies...
In the meantime try a search over on http://www.pirate4x4.com/ in the jeep forums...
pretty sure I've seen pics of a low pinion 44 with coil brackets somewhere...

I think someone on here did a LP44 using RE's brackets and what they did was grind and cut the brackets so as to fit on the housing...

Try a search using RE Brackets and see what turns up...

Good luck

Here's a couple crappy shot of the buckets on my Waggy 44.





I guess the people that don't consider the Waggy 44 an upgrade to a HP 30 are not looking for deeper gears, true high steer, larger brakes, and servicable bearings.

-Jon

Here is mine, '81 waggy using the RE brackets. I didn't trust my welding on this especially since it requires welding to casting, so I actually took it to a shop to do. Haven't installed it yet unfortunately, still waiting on a locker. I looked for an HP housing for almost 8 months, but could never find one for a reasonable price that I didn't have to pay even more on shipping.

Sorry to hijack!!
Not many Waggys here on The Rock, just wondering if the axels are the same width as the XJ?

THE NEWF said:

Sorry to hijack!!
Not many Waggys here on The Rock, just wondering if the axels are the same width as the XJ?

Click to expand...

close enough

brandon

Kaczman said:

I guess the people that don't consider the Waggy 44 an upgrade to a HP 30 are not looking for deeper gears, true high steer, larger brakes, and servicable bearings.

-Jon

Click to expand...

Just looking for all that PLUS a stronger R&P in my HP44. If you're going to all the trouble, why not just go HP?

Kaczman said:

I guess the people that don't consider the Waggy 44 an upgrade to a HP 30 are not looking for deeper gears, true high steer, larger brakes, and servicable bearings.

Click to expand...

Exactly...

Capt. Nemo said:

Just looking for all that PLUS a stronger R&P in my HP44. If you're going to all the trouble, why not just go HP?

Click to expand...

Honestly, I'm on a budget... A HP ford axle costs money, and I don't want to go full width because of the tight trails up here in the NW, and the really strict fender flare/tire coverage laws here. I could have it cut down to run waggy inners, but that's more $$$ right there. My problems with the 30 haven't been with the ring gear or pinion strength... It's been ball joints, the silly uni-bearings that wear out fast with anything other than stock back-spaced wheels, stupid-expensive hub conversions from warn, brakes that just plain suck with anything larger than a 31" tire, and to top it off, 5.13 gears aren't possible with an XJ D30.

There ya have it, I'm not upgrading for shaft strength or R&P strength.

Now, on to the original question. Searching Pirate I see that some people have used the RE kit, and actually ground ALOT of that spring perch off, infact, much further back than the housing extends on the passenger side. Guess if it's holding up like that, that'll probably be my method.

Kaczman: what did you do specifically about that cast part on your axle? I can't see too clearly in the pics how things are mounted... what did you do with the LCA mount?

Capt. Nemo said:

Just looking for all that PLUS a stronger R&P in my HP44. If you're going to all the trouble, why not just go HP?

Click to expand...

I already had the axle. Time will tell how well the R&P hold up.

NotMatt said:

Kaczman: what did you do specifically about that cast part on your axle? I can't see too clearly in the pics how things are mounted... what did you do with the LCA mount?

Click to expand...

I outboarded the LCA and coil mounts to clear the cast spring pad.





-Jon

I picked up my axle for a decent deal....and at the time I didn't think that I wanted full width. But I didn't have plans for swapping the rear axle either....which I have since done. Oh well. Mine worked out to be 62 1/2" wide with the 5x5.5 conversion.

I'm still happy with it. Here are my pics:











Brian
www.projectxj.com

My brackets are/were setup very similar to Steelman's, with the LCA mount and coil pad welded directly to the cast section. Mine was all done by a shop. These are the only pics I've got that show the driver-side brackets.

Those of you with the LCA mount welded to the cast piece... doesn't that scare you at all? Anyone had that LCA mount rip off or crack at the weld? I just hear a lot of bad things about welding to cast, IE... don't weld something that has to bear a load to cast if you aren't 100% sure you know what you're doing. I would be fine with the coil bucket welded to the cast, but having the LCA mount welded to the cast just gives me the willies for some reason... I can see it ripping off on the highway or something and Bad Things happening.

I'm thinking I'm just going to cut that away enough, or outboard my LCA mounts like Kaczman did... probably the latter, that seems like the simplest method, since I'm going to run JJ's on my arms anyway.

I don't have pictures of mine, but I cut out a healthy chunk of that cast stuff where I wanted to mount my LCA. Then I at least had a steel tube to weld the control arm mount to.

I also filled any gaps from where I cut.....so I wouldn't have any problems with the tube spinning in the pumpkin.

haha! you should see my UCA mount then... the mount itself is welded directly to the housing, no RE-style bridge or anything. oddly enough, it's the best looking welds on the whole housing. But, like I said I had an axle-building shop do it -- I can barely weld regular steel, much less anything cast -- so hopefully they knew what they were doing when they welded to the cast section. Of course, they did a crappy job setting up the brackets and the rest of the welds don't look "professional", but whatever. It's damn solid and held up just fine for the 2 years I used it.

The axle truss/UCA mount is welded to the top of the pig. It is also tied into the hydraulic ram mount as well. I pre-heated it, and turned the MIG up. It's held up well so far, and I can't weld for sh!t.

-Jon

Jon, so you mig'ed on the cast? Everyone I've talked to has always talked about arc welding to weld to cast, so I was wondering how well mig worked on cast.

Yeah, I pre-heated it and MIG'ed right to the housing with ER70S-6 wire. I know a high nickel rod or TIG are preferred, and since I had neither I figured I'd give it a try. It's held up for a year now, but I always take the easy line.

-Jon

I've MIG'ed a bunch of stuff to cast, just clean very well, pre-heat, and use plenty of weld surface area and you'll be fine. Watch for cracking as it cools. If it does, you need more pre-heat.

CRASH