Project BAD Monkey 2001
The Dana 80 rear install
This is now the official "before" picture...
To start this mammoth task I positioned my truck on a flat spot in my driveway and jacked the rear up.
Once the truck was jacked up and firmly supported I started to take the rear axle off. I took the shocks
off first.
I loosened the u-bolts with an impact wrench and then sawed through them with a hacksaw to free the old
rear axle.
After dis- connecting the leaf springs, brakes, e-brake, breather hose, driveline, and ABS sensor, I
just rolled the old axle out from under the truck on its tires.
After removing the stock leaf springs I had to press in the polyurethane bushings and install my custom
designed shackles on my new National Springs leaf springs so that I could install them.
They bolted up nicely to the frame with 12 point aircraft hardware.
This picture shows both springs in place ready for the axle to be bolted up.
My friend Paul and I maneu- vered the Dana 80 rear axle with two 37 x 13 swamper boggers already attached
into place behind the truck.
Thats one happy camper! (me)
There she is ready to plug in, I had to lift the rear even more to clear the huge new tires.
This pig takes 5 quarts of 80w140, thats the oil capacity of some motors!
Once I had the rear all lubed and sealed up, I rolled it into place under the leafs. I still had to use
a floor jack to compress the leafs enough to get the axle under them.
This picture shows the U-bolts and custom straddles that I built as well as the new bump stop. The U-bolts
are from national and are 3/4" diameter! I cut them to length and had them galvanized.
There it is, the new rear end!
Check out these burely custom shackles I designed and built!
The last step shown here was to bolt up all 4 shocks to the axle and new frame mount, see how much
clearance I have under the axle tubes with the redesigned shock mounts and flipped U-bolts?
I made a bracket for the e-brake cables and used the existing one as a guide, it worked out well.
To connect the rear axle I made a custom center bearing support, here it is all clamped and ready
to be welded.
Here it is galvanized and ready to be installed, the center bearing is inplace only to take the
measurements for the drive line.
I designed the mount to bolt up to stock holes and it lined up and fit perfectly.
Now that it is in place I can measure from the transfer case yoke to the center bearing and from the
center bearing to the pinion yoke on the rear axle.
I took these measure- ments along with a sketch of the proposed angles to Steve at
South Bay Drive Line
and had him custom fab the super beefy two piece rear drive line with a CV joint.
This two piece drive line takes care of the lesson I learned at the rubicon, I have a ton of clearance
under the truck to avoid rocks!
The CV joint is a dual U-joint that allows for a steeper angle with less loss of torque.
The rear portion of the drive line has a slip yoke that allows it to compress and extend. I still
have to get the exhaust completed, I had to cut the end of the pipe to clear the dual rear shocks.
I also bought this U-bolt style yoke from SBDL and bolted it up to the fixed output shaft I got from
JB conversions
.
The drive line now telescopes at the portion that is connected from the center bearing to the pinion
yoke instead of the stock slip yoke design, a much stronger solution. The next page outlines this
and other transfer case upgrades I did.
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Marks Custom Stuff
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To start this mammoth task I positioned my truck on a flat spot in my driveway and jacked the rear up.
Once the truck was jacked up and firmly supported I started to take the rear axle off. I took the shocks
off first.
I loosened the u-bolts with an impact wrench and then sawed through them with a hacksaw to free the old
rear axle.
After dis- connecting the leaf springs, brakes, e-brake, breather hose, driveline, and ABS sensor, I
just rolled the old axle out from under the truck on its tires.
After removing the stock leaf springs I had to press in the polyurethane bushings and install my custom
designed shackles on my new National Springs leaf springs so that I could install them.
They bolted up nicely to the frame with 12 point aircraft hardware.
This picture shows both springs in place ready for the axle to be bolted up.
My friend Paul and I maneu- vered the Dana 80 rear axle with two 37 x 13 swamper boggers already attached
into place behind the truck.
Thats one happy camper! (me)
There she is ready to plug in, I had to lift the rear even more to clear the huge new tires.
This pig takes 5 quarts of 80w140, thats the oil capacity of some motors!
Once I had the rear all lubed and sealed up, I rolled it into place under the leafs. I still had to use
a floor jack to compress the leafs enough to get the axle under them.
This picture shows the U-bolts and custom straddles that I built as well as the new bump stop. The U-bolts
are from national and are 3/4" diameter! I cut them to length and had them galvanized.
There it is, the new rear end!
Check out these burely custom shackles I designed and built!
The last step shown here was to bolt up all 4 shocks to the axle and new frame mount, see how much
clearance I have under the axle tubes with the redesigned shock mounts and flipped U-bolts?
I made a bracket for the e-brake cables and used the existing one as a guide, it worked out well.
To connect the rear axle I made a custom center bearing support, here it is all clamped and ready
to be welded.
Here it is galvanized and ready to be installed, the center bearing is inplace only to take the
measurements for the drive line.
I designed the mount to bolt up to stock holes and it lined up and fit perfectly.
Now that it is in place I can measure from the transfer case yoke to the center bearing and from the
center bearing to the pinion yoke on the rear axle.
I took these measure- ments along with a sketch of the proposed angles to Steve at
South Bay Drive Line
and had him custom fab the super beefy two piece rear drive line with a CV joint.
This two piece drive line takes care of the lesson I learned at the rubicon, I have a ton of clearance
under the truck to avoid rocks!
The CV joint is a dual U-joint that allows for a steeper angle with less loss of torque.
The rear portion of the drive line has a slip yoke that allows it to compress and extend. I still
have to get the exhaust completed, I had to cut the end of the pipe to clear the dual rear shocks.
I also bought this U-bolt style yoke from SBDL and bolted it up to the fixed output shaft I got from
JB conversions
.
The drive line now telescopes at the portion that is connected from the center bearing to the pinion
yoke instead of the stock slip yoke design, a much stronger solution. The next page outlines this
and other transfer case upgrades I did.