Rotating Inner C's

I plan on rotating the inner C's on my TJ Rubicon 44. Right now I have 5 degrees of caster and a 10 degree difference between my pinion angle and driveline angle. The goal is to fix the angle so I don't have to rebuild my driveline twice a year.

Before I planned on doing this I installed some C gussets that will now make things difficult. I also lack a press or a large threaded rod to get them back on.

Now I am considering cutting the inner C's clean off, rotating 10 degrees, and welding them back on with a 2 x .25 DOM inner sleeve.

If I do so I would like to make my axle roughly 3" wider overall so i can eliminate my wheel spacers. I would have to 2.5 x .25 ID tube to sleeve over the inner sleeve and match the stock axle tube.

Am I crazy for thinking about this?

I'm pretty sure I can make it strong enough but do I have a snowballs chance in hell of keeping things straight?

And yes, I hate dumping time and money into a low pinion front axle, but its what I got. Unless somebody is selling a high pinion 44 for the right price?

Here are some pictures of my axle now

If you make the axle wider, what axle shafts are you going to use ? Wouldn't new rims with the backspacing you need/want be cheaper/easier than custom axle shafts ?

Cut the axle tube inboard of the gussets, sleeve the cut, bevel and weld the cut with full joint penetration welds, and rosette weld the sleeve to the original tubes. If the sleeve is hammer fit tight into the tubes, the welds are carefully spaced to evenly distribute heat, everything should line up.

That is going to suck to do on the driver side... real, real bad. Not much space to work there, and lots of stuff to cut loose.

I would consider trading it for one that hasn't had the inner C braces welded on and then do the normal rotate and reweld. IIRC you don't have to actually pull them off, just spin them on the tube with a BFH.

Or just grind the C braces off, they aren't exactly expensive or hard to make.

Thanks Tim. The whole axle shaft thing slipped my mind. Forget the wider axle part.

I would prefer not to run a full .250 wall sleeve, on the long side at least. Would running a foot into the long side tube and plug welding be sufficient? Or would I be better off with .120 wall tube and running it to the diff so I can weld the end be better?

I would want full width sleeves, but that's just me. A quick Google search finds most sleeve kits are full width .250 wall tube.

I would want full width sleeves, but that's just me. A quick Google search finds most sleeve kits are full width .250 wall tube.

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I already got the truss which I am pretty confident in. I'll probably end up doing the .120 wall full sleeve. I'll think on it for a while

Think of it this way you know .250 is going to be much stronger then .120. And you know the dangers and mess it would cause if your welds failed and that .120 sleeve didn't hold up. So given that info a sleeve costing even $100 more to go to .250 could save you 3 times that and maybe even your life. It will never be as strong after cutting it i don't care how good of a weld that's put down. The strength really comes from the sleeve. How much is it worth to you?

Honestly it is gonna be a crapload of work to do that. It would almost be easier to start with another housing.

Just cut a notch out of the bottom of each gusset, cut the c's off rotate, then reweld the c's on and add a smaller gusset to fill the gap between the tube and the original gussets. There would be no need to cut the whole gusset off when it would be easier to weld to the gusset than the c.

Yeah, but grinding the welds out between the inner C, tube, and gusset is going to be absolutely terrible.

I really don't like the idea of cutting the tubes to get the knuckles off and then remounting by butt welding with a sleeve inside, but hey, it's your axle and your life. If you do that, make sure whoever welds it knows EXACTLY what they are doing.

AaronNW said:

Thanks Tim. The whole axle shaft thing slipped my mind. Forget the wider axle part.

I would prefer not to run a full .250 wall sleeve, on the long side at least. Would running a foot into the long side tube and plug welding be sufficient? Or would I be better off with .120 wall tube and running it to the diff so I can weld the end be better?

Click to expand...

ive never done this so i this may not even be an issue, but the one question that jumps out at me is how much clearance does the inner shaft need side-to-side for knuckle articulation? i know it doesnt move much, but adding a .25 sleeve inside essentially gives you .50 less room to move. is that still going to be enough clearance for the shaft when you have the steering at full lock? i'm a fan of over-building things, but .120 with a good competent weld and several plugs seems to me like it would be enough if the larger tube will interfere with the shaft.

Fortunately it won't - d30 tubes are 2.5" OD, approx .25" wall, approx 2" ID.

That leaves 1.5" ID, and d30 axleshafts are 1.13" OD, so you have plenty of room. They do move a little but ideally shouldn't move at all, the ujoint axis of rotation and the steering axis should be coincident. Keeping it this way is actually why a WJ swap requires a certain unit bearing and the 1/4" spacer, else the ujoint would be too far into the knuckle and things would bind while turning and possibly even while going straight.

Still not sure I would go that route... hope you trust your welder (and weldor.)