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Welding the 8.25

T

tweeve

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Tri-Cities, Washington
I'm sure someone has asked or posted this before but I couldn't find much. I did try searching.

I want to weld the rear 8.25 on my XJ. Now the question is, I have to have a friend do it as I don't have a welder and don't know how to weld. He is very good at welding, (as he has used an arc welder to weld back my door hinges when they were tearing away from the body), but I don't believe he has ever welded up a rear before.
What does he need to do to weld up the 8.25? The welder is an arc welder if that makes a difference.
 
Welding is the easy part,its replacing tires all the time that sucks!
 
100_0330.jpg


basically you want to weld the 4 "points" where the gears inside the carrier come together.
 
RCP Phx said:
Welding is the easy part,its replacing tires all the time that sucks!
Click to expand...

This is a stop gap until I can get a real locker put in it...I'm basically broke for money and am missing a ton of wheeling trips because I'm not locked up front and rear. I'm getting a lock right for the front that should be coming today. I just cant afford a real locker at the moment.

Also if I rotate my tires more tire wear should be not much worse than it already is.
 
Remove the outer gears from the carrier as you dont want spatter on them at all. Heat the gears with a torch really hot before welding, this will aid in getting better penetration into the gears. I also welded the spider gears to the carrier on mine. Have had mine welded for 5 years and only had a few small cracks after 3 years of hard wheeling and being DD for the first 3 years. Depends on what type of tire and how much you DD and/or wheel you'll eat up tires. I couldnt really notice with all the wheeling I did. Jeff
 
Mines welded. Been wheelin on it for almost a year, no problems yet. Make sure to keep the axles and cross pin in, or the slightest movement can make it a pain in the ass to get them back in. Make some good tack welds, then remove the said items. Also, make sure the metal is really clean, or the weld won't penetrate good, if any. Heating up should help, as the gears are harder than most metal. Also weld to the carrier for more strength.
 
On a DD,it only took 3 months for my son to figure out that a locker is WAY cheaper than a set of BFG's.On concrete you can see the rubber laid down with every turn.On asphalt you could actually measure it,anywhere from .001-.0015" cuts(abrasions)for each turn!
 
Just welded mine up, pm a guy named Stupidweirdo. His name is Adam and he did an amazing job. I ran 35" boggers on my '82 Bronco with a mini-spool an entire winter and didn't notice much wear. I think it depends on the tire.
 
the man has a point. I hope you you have a hook up at the local tire joint

RCP Phx said:
On a DD,it only took 3 months for my son to figure out that a locker is WAY cheaper than a set of BFG's.On concrete you can see the rubber laid down with every turn.On asphalt you could actually measure it,anywhere from .001-.0015" cuts(abrasions)for each turn!
Click to expand...
 
I saw a writeup on a D-44 where they fill-welded all the grooves between the teeth on both the side gears and spider gears except the teeth that actually engage. Thes allows regular disassembly of the carrier and you can then slap a set of standard spider gears and reconvert to "open" if you don't like the result. It won't be as strong as welding everything up solid, but if you're really strapped for cash, it might save replacing the carrier if things don't work out.
 
i'm really curious about the driving habits of the people who keep claiming that welded rears eat tires. i've had my rear welded now for some time, and just passed my tires on to my 3rd vehicle. they started on my wifes jeep for a little over a year, and then went to my cherokee after she got bigger tires. they rode on my welded cherokee for a little over a year, and now recently went to my grand wagoneer since my cherokee got bigger tires. and they still have easily another 10-15,000miles left on them. personally i haven't noticed this "tire eating" phenomenon.
 
Damn, you must not drive much scorpio.

I can actually watch my MT/R's wear down with just a detroit locker in the rear, and I'm pretty easy on the throttle.

It's coming out and an ARB going in soon (well, and some 35 spline shafts to match..).. With the cost of tires that should pay for itself very quickly.
 
cal said:
Damn, you must not drive much scorpio.
Click to expand...

Daily driver with most wheeling being 2-6hours away. with an average of 50-100miles a day. for some reason i don't seem to wear tires that bad. even before i welded my axle, everybody told me i wouldn't get more than 15-20,000miles out of my tires because they were "to aggressive" for the road. well my first set (goodyear MT/R), i sold with 1/4 tread when they had about 35,000 miles, and like i mentioned, the tires on my waggy got passed down from my wife to my xj to the waggy and currently still have almost 1/2 tread with around 20ish,000 miles on them. guess now i'll find out how long my 33' bfg mud terrains last on my welded axle. lol hopefully i can sell them to after a year or so.

the only thing i do with them is keep the air good, and rotate them every 1-1,500 miles.
 
I rotate with every oil change.

My current MT/R's (metric 35's) have about 20,000 on them and I've gone through about 60% of the tread. My BFG's lasted a lot longer. The guys I see on cheaper tires (interco, cooper, etc) seem to get far far less.

I think it matters as much what the tire is as how you drive, and where you drive.
 
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