Retrofit Manual Hubs

n2gpin said:

Howdy folks -
First of all, Great site!
I hate introducing myself with a "help me", without a "help you"
first, but here I go anyway...
I have an '89 Limited, with the front axle engaged full time.
I'm struggling with DW. I've gone through the archives, and
have done what I found there already. Most I got was about
2 months' relief.
I'm wondering if the front diff might be a contributor? The
steering / alignment components are hashed up right now,
and before I go through them again, I'd like to try and eliminate
the only remaining variable I can think of.

Has anyone retrofitted manual hubs to the front axle?

Thx,
D.

Click to expand...

Yeah, there are kits for doing so: checkout warn and IIRC superwinch.
Before you take as drastic of a measure to find DW problem, there are other items that you can verify/check/work on. Search for death wobble and you'll find wealth of info on the topic.

Kejtar said:

Yeah, there are kits for doing so: checkout warn and IIRC superwinch.
Before you take as drastic of a measure to find DW problem, there are other items that you can verify/check/work on. Search for death wobble and you'll find wealth of info on the topic.

Click to expand...

What he said - first place to check is for obvious worn parts.

If no joy there, make sure your caster is correct. If it is within spec change it to the high side of spec.

If this introduces some front driveline vibe (unlikely) then chances are your front sprngs are tired and need replacing (sagged so things are not lined up any more).

That's what I'd try at any rate.

HTH

r@m

Thanks for the quick reply, guys.

I see the traffic this site generates, and made sure
I did my homework before bothering everyone with
this infamous question.
I know how irritating it can be when people want to
be spoon fed instead of looking through the outstanding
knowledge base to find the answers for themselves.

The Jeep had DW when I got it.

Upon inspection, one of the front coils was broken,
so I went to the junk yard and "improvised".
I wound up with approx. 4.5" lift with the "new"
coils and leaf springs. Still DW.
I installed new shocks and steering stabilizer - no relief.
I rotated the tires, front to rear, rear to front...no change.
I got new tires, rotated and balanced...still bad.
I replaced the upper ball joint, passenger side, and lower
on the driver's side - the others were ( and are ) good.
I also replaced the track bar, upper T.B. mount, tie-rod
ends ( other than the coined in jobs...grrr )
It went away for about 5 weeks.
When it came back again, I got it aligned, and it went
away for about 2 months. Now it's back, and bad! I broke
a motor mount, for crying out loud!
I replaced the steering box. No help.
I replaced the control arm bushings. No good.
The tie rod ends are all hashed up again from the DW,
and I'm about ready to convert to leaves in front.
At least I won't have to replace the track bar upper
again...

That's why I'm curious about a junkyard swap for spindles
with manual locking hubs. I don't know what's compatible.
I've seen the "kits" for $800.00, but frankly can't afford it.
( spent all my money on Jeep front end parts! )
Anybody heard of doing this old school style?
I'm wondering if, since the front axle is engaged full time,
( not with the x-fer case ) that there may be issues with
the differential...enough to get it started, anyway.
After a few sessions, everythings beat to heck anyway...

Sorry for the blather...Thanks again,
D.

I haven't done this yet, but I had the same thing happen to me for the first time last week with my SAS Eagle wagon. I have leafs on it with Waggy front springs and hybrid rear springs. I have about 8" of lift with the spring setup I'm using, yes the rears are too short. The axles are from an 86 MJ, D30 and AMC20 with 4.10s. So is the steering. The pitman arm is from a ZJ. It has 33-10.5x15s on it for now on stock Jeep 6 spoke 15x7s. Tires are fair and the front end checks out ok. No track bar or control arms, but still has occasional DW. I am curious how much of a pain it would be to make the D28 or D35 Twin Traction Beam knuckles out from a small Ford work on the D30. They have the same bolt pattern and maybe......never know. I guess I am gonna have to go yard hopping to find a few pieces and give it a try. Also those front axles have sericable wheelbearings. Gonna have to try it and see. It would be much cheaper to be able to run that stuff than go with a kit. There is an excellent offorad fab outfit in Colorado called Spidertrax that started with Suzuki stuff that might be able to come up with an adaptor or knuckles to do that, I'll call them and see what they have to say.

I was thinking of doing the same thing to my XJ project. I was planning on ganking some CJ spindles and slappin em on the old D30 upfront...was just curious if it would "bolt up" That would change the bolt pattern to 5 on 5.5. Which is no prob, if I swap in a 9 inch. However, the last poster had a point regarding the traction beam stuff found in exploders and rangers. Not sure if it would bolt up, but I have an exploded exploder sittin out back the shop...I will tear her apart and see whats up...

Anybody done it with CJ stuff yet?

Spindles won't cure your DW. Every part needs to be tight. If the TRE's are loose, forget getting rid of DW until they are replaced. Its late tonight, but I will post a troubleshooting guide for DW tomorrow.

definitely not going to be easy to use CJ parts... that's why Warn and MileMarker make manual hub kits.

If you want to use CJ parts, the easiest thing would probably be to cut the inner C's off the axle tubes and weld on some CJ inners so you can use CJ knuckles. Somewhere there's an article on doing this.

Tom's right, hubs aren't going to have anything to do with DW.

I have to ask though, are you sure you've got DW? A lot of people mistakenly throw that term around, when what they've got isn't DW. Did the original poster ever get their issues resolved?

you're at 4.5" of lift? i suppose you're on stock control arms seeing as how you improvised the lift from junkyard parts. i think your DW is from your control arms being at too steep of an angle.

my .02