I've been meaning to take a closer look at the sliders for a while. At the time it was too cold out. And then they got covered in mud. Finally had to wash her off for the Toy Run and took a closer look. Low and behold they did get dented:
No big deal. After all, thats what they are for!
For a while now I've been going back-and-forth between getting some JK D44's or building up my own axles. According to the guys at IROR the JK axles are now being sold a la carte (i.e. rotors, calipers, etc. sold separately) and the price has gone up considerably. I have thus committed to building my own.
For the front I got a high pinion D30 from a '94 XJ and for the rear I got a D44 from an '87 XJ. These D44's are rare since they were only available on '87-'89 XJ's with the tow package and I needed to travel to New Hampshire to get it.
Front high pinion D30:
Rear D44:
I paid $150 for the front and $200 for the rear which is dirt cheap around here. Most yards are selling the D30's for $300-$550 and D44's from TJ's for (well) over $1000.
I'm going to strip them down and do a complete rebuild so by the time I'm done the only parts remaining will be the housings, knuckles, and bearing caps.
Gearing will be 4.56's with a Detriot Locker in the rear. The rear will of course be adapted to disc brakes and I want to keep ABS working all around. I'm considering a Superior Super 30 kit w/ ARB in the front but its not clear if this kit works with ABS. I called Superior and was told the axles are machined to accept a tone ring but the guy I was talking to did not give the impression he really knew what he was talking about. Its looking like I am on my own when it comes to ABS in the rear. The wildcard in all this is what to do with the suspension. I'm definitely stripping off all the mounting brackets and replacing them. The question is whether to stick with short-arms and 4 1/2" springs or go with long-arms and 4 1/2"-5 1/2" springs. If long-arms then triangulated 4-link, 5-link, or maybe something entirely different? Decisions, decisions. I'm even thinking about designing my own suspension.
While up in NH picking up the rear axle I had to wait a few hours while they pulled the axle so I asked them to direct me to some local trails. The sent me to some power lines a few miles away. Its was
slippery out there! My daughter and I did not get a quarter mile down the trail before we ran into a kid who had his TJ (on street tires) mired. His mother and father were out there in a Land Rover trying to get him unstuck. They had already snapped a tow strap and tensions were running high. We spend the next hour or so shoveling and jacking and were finally able to pull him out with my tow strap. In the end we did not get much wheeling in and never took any action pictures because my daughter and I were to busy fighting about who got to drive.