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They have been curing for over a week, so I'm hoping they hold up well. Paint manufacturer says it is "very" chip resistant after a full cure of 7 days.
The flange and bolt spacing is larger on the '07. Had to pull the one off my old axle and put it on the new one. Not too big a deal, but you will need a tool to pull the flanges off the axles to swap them. I used a 3 jaw puller.
Adding to the flange swap info above, you will need an old school inch pound torque wrench like this one:
You will need several adapters to get the 1 1/8" socket on that little torque wrench...
It is also highly recommended you buy a new lock nut for the flange, and a crush sleeve (just in case). When swapping the flange, remove the calipers, caliper bracket and the rotor from both sides of the axle. They will interfere with your pre-load measurement if you do not. Before removing the flange from your new-to-you axle, measure and take a picture of the threads sticking out past the nut. Then mark it with one of the markers Pirate talked about earlier in this thread. You will need to get your old flange in the new axle at EXACTLY the same depth and pre-load as the one you are removing. Before taking the flange off the new axle, it is recommended you measure the existing pre-load, so you can duplicate it when putting the old flange on.
Put your old flange on the new axle, and tighten the nut down to the EXACT same place the old nut was. Then measure your pre-load. YOU CANNOT BACK THE NUT OFF IF YOU GO TOO FAR. You will need to start over with a new crush sleeve...not the end of the world, just a little more work. With the old bearing still in there, you should show 10-14 in/lbs on the dial as you turn the flange. Ignore the initial startup torque reading as you get the flange turning. You are looking for how much torque it takes to keep it spinning, not start it spinning. I ended up at 15 in/lbs tonight, and I am calling it good.
Last edited by Nicmike; Feb 6, 2018 at 01:10 AM.
Reason: More info!
I am going to break this down a bit into a couple different posts. Otherwise, it will all run together if I put it one post...and I have a ton of pictures for you guys looking to do this yourselves.
First things first...
You need good jack stands. If your truck doesn't weigh 12 tons, don't be jealous of mine.
There is spot on the frame just forward of the axles where there is a hole on the bottom side of the frame on both side of the truck. If you use this spot, it will give you ample room to work. If I was doing this again, I would put the jack stands 1 inch in FRONT of the hole instead of behind it.
You can use one or two jacks to elevate the rear. Get the 12 ton jack stands (or smaller if your X is smaller) under there. Remove the tires now.
Lower the truck on the 12 ton jack stands and stop when they make contact with the frame. Now bring in the little jack stands, and put them under the axles away from the shock mounts so you will have room to remove them. Continue now to lower the axle. The truck frame should STOP lowering at this point. Once the axle has settled on the little jack stands, remove your jacks out of the way.
Now we get to disconnect everything from your old axle.
Start with the U bolts.
Now you know why I had you lower the axle after setting the frame on the big jack stands. You need clearance to get your impact in there! You don't want to be here all day do you?
Whizz all the nuts off the u-bolts. You will need new ones, as it is not recommended you re-use u-bolts. Here I have them laid out for comparison. Part number was provided earlier in the thread for the u-bolts and new spring pack pins.
Remove the shocks. Easy enough...
Disconnect your parking brake cables from the front cable. Pull back hard on the front cable, and they slide right out of the bracket.
If you have one of these, things will move fast. If you don't, well you could be here all day...
Follow the cables back, and disconnect them from the frame and axle at the various points they are attached. They are attached all those places for a reason, so don't stick your new cables on half-assed or your parking brake will flop around when you apply it instead of putting tension on the brake shoes.
Disconnect the driveshaft and the sway bar at the bottom of the end links. DO NOT BEAT ON THE DRIVE SHAFT TO GET IT FREE. Pry on it! There are grooves/slots on each side of the u-joint where it mounts to the round flange for prying it off.
Bring in the furniture dollies!!! Yeah, I am serious. Bring them in, then set the axles down on them. You will bend the brake shields a bit, but they are easy to bend back with a pair of vice grips. You will never know the difference...
Ready to roll out.
...rolled out! To the side, even...
Once they are out, jack them back up. I put the tires back on after getting my braided steel brake lines, speed sensor and brake hard lines off it. You will need to put it back on jack stands to get the tires back on, though. It will only be on the stands briefly before you roll it out of the way. You will need the stands for your new axle.
It is the reverse of what you just did, with some problem solving added in for good measure. Actually, I am doing the problem solving for you.
Now is a good time to swap over your pinion flange from the old to the new axle, unless you got the u-joint from the old axle driveshaft. If the latter is the case, you will want to put that on your old axle while this thing is out of the way.
Jack your new axle up and put it on stands. Remove the tires if they are on it.
Set your axles on the furniture dollies, and install the brake lines, speed sensor and shock mounts.
I recently did modified b codes, and I reused my old hardware. Time to swap that stuff out for new hardware. I wrapped the spring pack, dropped the pin, put in the new pin, and then unwrapped the pack. Worked perfect..
Brake lines installed.
Old spring pack bolt and new.
Roll the axle under the truck and jack it up again. Remove the furniture dollies. Install your u-bolts and blocks. I did have to drill out the hole in the top plate, as the new spring pack nut was larger than the stock one.
Old vs New. You can see why I wanted new bolts with the modified B codes...
Too long to torque! Need to shorten them up a bit...
...much better!
Both sides shortened.
Time to torque the nuts. Jack the axle up until the frame is 1/2" off the big jacks. this will put all the weight on the axle/u-bolts. Torque to 185 ft/lbs, then lower the truck back onto the big stands.
Get your driveshaft bolts and some red loctite. You are not supposed to re-use these, so go buy some new ones. They come with the red loctite on them. Yes, I am re-using mine. I forgot to get some new ones...
Take a moment after installing your drive shaft flange (rotors off) to bend your brake shields back in place. You can barely tell mine were ever bent from the dollies.
On to the parking brakes! Here is the old equalizer from the F250/350 donor. We aren't using it. Throw it away...
We are using the X equalizer. Much more manly looking. Start from the rear and work your way forward with each parking brake line. Attach it to the frame as best you can in the same places (or close) as it was before. I had to cut off several of the F250 brackets, as there were too many of them and nowhere to attach them. They would have been extras, anyway.
Once I got to the equalizer, the top cable (driver side cable) was about 1.5" too long. I figured out a way around that...
I dove into my box of old sockets. Found a 9/16, chopped the ratchet end off with a cut-off wheel and made a spacer out of it. I might tack weld it to that bracket later. Works perfect like this...will have to test it good when I get it rolling again.
On to the sway bar! Pretty simple...
On to the shocks...<br/><br/>Use the driver's side shock mount from your old axle.
For passenger side shock mount, I used the skinny driver's side mount from an F250. This was discussed a couple of pages back. Revisit that post if you need to...
Skinny mount side view
Skinny mount front view. Here you can see the mount is "off the pin". The pin is just above the hole jammed into that triangle shaped void created by having it off the pin. It isn't going anyplace in my opinion. Very solid.
I re-used the old sway bar links, and they came out perfectly level. Better than before, actually.
That is brake fluid all over the housing from when I wheeled it under the truck. The brake line from the front was still dripping, and it made a mess under the truck and on the housing. Next time, I will wait till it stops dripping (empty). Gotta replace the master cylinder anyway...
Awesome! you going to post the "finished" measurements to compare to the "starting"??
I just towed my 4x4 F250 suspension donor up to our place over the weekend, once I clear out some space in the barn (my FL tools are in the way) I can commence my winter project.
"After" measurements will be posted when I am done. Hoping the weather cooperates today and tomorrow.
I'll add this thought: The install on the rear went quick, because all the prep work was done in advance while continuing to drive/use the truck. If it had not been done at leisure/over some time preceding the install, then the install would have taken much more time. I also would have run into all the problems I discovered while refurbishing these axles during install, which would be frustrating and not much fun. This really was fun for me to install this axle. Seeing this project (that I have planned for a long time now) come together is very gratifying.
"There is no greater motivator than a lofty goal set...and achieved." - Me
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