Snapped drive train, rear end locked up

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sota

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lemonade from your lemons:
assuming the inside of the pumpkin isn't all tore up, you could keep your original axle and have it built with a DTT or locker at some point in the future, then swap it back in. you could even do a re-gear while you're at it. save you some down time in the future.
 

punkguy

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lemonade from your lemons:
assuming the inside of the pumpkin isn't all tore up, you could keep your original axle and have it built with a DTT or locker at some point in the future, then swap it back in. you could even do a re-gear while you're at it. save you some down time in the future.

I like the positive outlook!
 

sota

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hey while you're in the yard, see if you can find a front diff too for cheap, for the same reason.
 

u2slow

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Its very possible a set of gears and a bearing kit would fix that right up. Grind off some of that gouging on the diff case. Or put in a locker while you're at it... :party52:
 

sota

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you're probably right. the chances that the pumpkin housing itself go clobbered badly is probably pretty low, but you won't know until you tear it all down.
plus you'll need to pull the axles out too and make sure the tube are flushed too. basically you need to gut the axle down and rebuild it. while it can be done and you could do most of that work yourself, minus setting up the gears... leave that for a pro, it's a still a time/labor consuming task. if he can get a decent assembly from a yard for a good price (i'd request the cover be pulled so you can inspect btw) that's the way to go, especially if he's a 1-vehicle owner.
 

Hockeygoon

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Agreed.

Setting up the gears is best left to a pro with the proper tools. I'd never attempt that myself. Swapping out the entire axle isn't a technically hard job but take some time to look it over to see what you can just leave in place. TomMudd and I swapped out mine and he came up with a brilliant plan to leave the brake lines in place but just removing the breather lines from the axle. Then it's disconnecting the rear u-joint, removing the lower control arm bolts at the axle, the shocks and the center bolt for the upper control arm, and the emergency brake cables. Pop off the speedometer sensor connector, remove old axle, reverse the procedure to install new one. Done.

Bob


I agree. Setting up a differential is best left to someone that knows what they are doing, experimenting on your own can be expensive and lead to a repeat of what got you here in the first place. I've seen freshly rebuilt rear ends from shops fail in extremely short periods of time - especially ones that saw heavy use.
 

LibertyTC

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Good luck with the repairs.
With that much carnage, can you get a photo of the gear shaving etc, stuck in the bottom around the magnet area PLEASE ?
I wonder how much is piled up down in there...:shrug:
 

punkguy

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I'm just swapping out rear axles from a junk yard. Of course they gave me the wrong one the first time around. Asked for a u joint connection (even says it on the receipt), gave me a cv joint. I didn't even pay attention when I loaded it. No one has a u joint one in town either.

Is the front part connection of that rear drive shaft the same for all models of kj's? Or are both sides of the drive shaft the same, as in either a cv joint or u joint for both ends? (I don't have the jeep in front of me) Wondering since I have a cv connection rear diff now, if I could just swap out the drive shaft with one that has the cv connection as well?
 

TwoBobsKJ

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I'm just swapping out rear axles from a junk yard. Of course they gave me the wrong one the first time around. Asked for a u joint connection (even says it on the receipt), gave me a cv joint. I didn't even pay attention when I loaded it. No one has a u joint one in town either.

Is the front part connection of that rear drive shaft the same for all models of kj's? Or are both sides of the drive shaft the same, as in either a cv joint or u joint for both ends? (I don't have the jeep in front of me) Wondering since I have a cv connection rear diff now, if I could just swap out the drive shaft with one that has the cv connection as well?

Nope, the yokes are different. Unless you want to pull the pinion gear and very carefully retighten the pinion nut it's best to find the u-joint version.

Bob
 
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