steel front diff

Neatus · **Posted:** Thu Apr 22, 2010 1:32 pm

Oh, maybe I should do an IFS swap!

Quicksilversurf917 · **Posted:** Thu Apr 22, 2010 2:40 pm

Ill trade ya :ROTFL:

My IFS for your SFA :pepper:

2mopar_diesels · **Posted:** Sat Apr 24, 2010 10:47 pm

Got the CRD in the shop today, and right up till they closed for the weekend (with about an hour's worth of work left to do), everything was going perfect. Got the gears and diff all installed, along with the mounting brackets. The tech doing the install kept saying he was impressed with the engineering and quality of the product, and had everyone in the shop standing around staring while doing the install. Only thing left to do is bolt it all up to the cross-member and attach the driveshaft, cv's, and suspension pieces. Will be done 1st thing Monday morning. I only have a couple cell pics of the diff sitting in the box it shipped in. The rest are on the SD card in the camera I left at the shop.

Diggerfreek · **Posted:** Sun Apr 25, 2010 1:22 am

Shinny

2mopar_diesels · **Posted:** Sun Apr 25, 2010 3:25 pm

Yeh, I doubt there will be any worries about busting this thing. Whats sad is that the wall thickness of this steel housing is actually thicker than the aluminum one it replaces. So, lets see.........replace aluminum with stronger steel, plus a thicker steel housing at that??? I'd hazard a guess we're looking at additional strength over stock in the 75%+ range!!!!!!! Also realize that some of the problems associated with the D30 in SFA rigs is due to the fact it has to carry out load bearing duties as well as propulsion. Given the static, non load-bearing nature of IFS center diffs, this thing should lead a long and happy life.

stumpjumper_09 · **Posted:** Sun Apr 25, 2010 6:03 pm

Who will be first on this one? Boiler with the specs on steel vs al. or Tjkj? I'm putting my bet on Tjkj

2mopar_diesels · **Posted:** Sun Apr 25, 2010 7:03 pm

stumpjumper_09 wrote:

Who will be first on this one? Boiler with the specs on steel vs al. or Tjkj? I'm putting my bet on Tjkj

I'm no metallurgist, but everything I know is that aluminum can be just as strong as steel, but you need more of it. Even then it would still be lighter. Especially when dealing with cast aluminum, given the exact same thickness of each, steel wins every time!!! A thicker piece of steel vs. a thinner piece of aluminum..........well, thats a no-brainer. Now, when using annodized billet aluminum vs. steel, things narrow a bit.

JustinP · **Posted:** Sun Apr 25, 2010 7:09 pm

Its killing me to see this bolted up. I absolutely love this idea. I hope it works great. Its definitely something i'd consider buying. Can't wait to see pics of it all finished up. :JEEPIN:

2mopar_diesels · **Posted:** Sun Apr 25, 2010 7:46 pm

JustinP wrote:

Its killing me to see this bolted up. I absolutely love this idea. I hope it works great. Its definitely something i'd consider buying. Can't wait to see pics of it all finished up. :JEEPIN:

Patience grasshopper!!! The shop should have everything buttoned up and roadworthy 1st thing tomorrow morning. Only thing I can come up with as to being a possible problem is the draining and refilling of gear oil. Cause as you can see, with the standard diff cover you only have a fill hole, and to drain you would have to unmount the bracket that bolts to it in able to take the cover off and drain. The OEM cover doesn't work, so we just cut a hole and welded a threaded bung to reuse the drain plug from the factory cover.

tjkj2002 · **Posted:** Sun Apr 25, 2010 9:49 pm

2mopar_diesels wrote:

stumpjumper_09 wrote:

Who will be first on this one? Boiler with the specs on steel vs al. or Tjkj? I'm putting my bet on Tjkj

I'm no metallurgist, but everything I know is that aluminum can be just as strong as steel, but you need more of it. Even then it would still be lighter. Especially when dealing with cast aluminum, given the exact same thickness of each, steel wins every time!!! A thicker piece of steel vs. a thinner piece of aluminum..........well, thats a no-brainer. Now, when using annodized billet aluminum vs. steel, things narrow a bit.

I'm not a big fan of aluminum and offroading but there is aluminum alloy's that are much stronger then steel,and yes still stronger in a thinner form also.Now cost wise you can't beat steel over aluminum.My Atlas was machined from a solid chunk of aluminum alloy which cost more then your KJ did.

dgeist · **Posted:** Sun Apr 25, 2010 10:09 pm

2mopar_diesels wrote:

... Only thing I can come up with as to being a possible problem is the draining and refilling of gear oil. Cause as you can see, with the standard diff cover you only have a fill hole, and to drain you would have to unmount the bracket that bolts to it in able to take the cover off and drain. The OEM cover doesn't work, so we just cut a hole and welded a threaded bung to reuse the drain plug from the factory cover.

Kinda surprised on that one... That's one of the really NICE features about the OEM diff (bottom drain). It's hard to imagine that JBA won't put something like that into a 1.1 version. Taking the whole sub-assembly apart to change the diff oil would be a major PITA where you can do it in 10 minutes now.

Dan

2mopar_diesels · **Posted:** Sun Apr 25, 2010 10:18 pm

tjkj2002 wrote:

2mopar_diesels wrote:

stumpjumper_09 wrote:

Who will be first on this one? Boiler with the specs on steel vs al. or Tjkj? I'm putting my bet on Tjkj

I'm no metallurgist, but everything I know is that aluminum can be just as strong as steel, but you need more of it. Even then it would still be lighter. Especially when dealing with cast aluminum, given the exact same thickness of each, steel wins every time!!! A thicker piece of steel vs. a thinner piece of aluminum..........well, thats a no-brainer. Now, when using annodized billet aluminum vs. steel, things narrow a bit.

I'm not a big fan of aluminum and offroading but there is aluminum alloy's that are much stronger then steel,and yes still stronger in a thinner form also.Now cost wise you can't beat steel over aluminum.My Atlas was machined from a solid chunk of aluminum alloy which cost more then your KJ did.

And hence what I was alluding to. In order to get equal or better strength out of aluminum vs. normal steel, you gotta get into some fairly exotic alloys and still, only solid billet machined aluminum at that (which means very expensive as you stated). Now, if you want to get into ultimate limits of strength, again steel wins as it's more readily alloyed with other metals like cobalt, tungsten, carbide, etc. giving steel nearly unlimited abilities in tempering, heat treating, and hardening. Granted, it will always be heavy though. But there are reasons you don't see aluminum springs, axle shafts, gears, gun barrels, bearings etc.

2mopar_diesels · **Posted:** Sun Apr 25, 2010 10:25 pm

dgeist wrote:

2mopar_diesels wrote:

... Only thing I can come up with as to being a possible problem is the draining and refilling of gear oil. Cause as you can see, with the standard diff cover you only have a fill hole, and to drain you would have to unmount the bracket that bolts to it in able to take the cover off and drain. The OEM cover doesn't work, so we just cut a hole and welded a threaded bung to reuse the drain plug from the factory cover.

Kinda surprised on that one... That's one of the really NICE features about the OEM diff (bottom drain). It's hard to imagine that JBA won't put something like that into a 1.1 version. Taking the whole sub-assembly apart to change the diff oil would be a major PITA where you can do it in 10 minutes now.

Dan

Marlin has already been notified of this, and all future diffs will be modified as such.

stumpjumper_09 · **Posted:** Sun Apr 25, 2010 11:30 pm

tjkj2002 wrote:

2mopar_diesels wrote:

stumpjumper_09 wrote:

Who will be first on this one? Boiler with the specs on steel vs al. or Tjkj? I'm putting my bet on Tjkj

I'm no metallurgist, but everything I know is that aluminum can be just as strong as steel, but you need more of it. Even then it would still be lighter. Especially when dealing with cast aluminum, given the exact same thickness of each, steel wins every time!!! A thicker piece of steel vs. a thinner piece of aluminum..........well, thats a no-brainer. Now, when using annodized billet aluminum vs. steel, things narrow a bit.

I'm not a big fan of aluminum and offroading but there is aluminum alloy's that are much stronger then steel,and yes still stronger in a thinner form also.Now cost wise you can't beat steel over aluminum.My Atlas was machined from a solid chunk of aluminum alloy which cost more then your KJ did.

I was right!!!

JL Rockies · **Posted:** Sun Apr 25, 2010 11:39 pm

dgeist wrote:

2mopar_diesels wrote:

... Only thing I can come up with as to being a possible problem is the draining and refilling of gear oil. Cause as you can see, with the standard diff cover you only have a fill hole, and to drain you would have to unmount the bracket that bolts to it in able to take the cover off and drain. The OEM cover doesn't work, so we just cut a hole and welded a threaded bung to reuse the drain plug from the factory cover.

Kinda surprised on that one... That's one of the really NICE features about the OEM diff (bottom drain). It's hard to imagine that JBA won't put something like that into a 1.1 version. Taking the whole sub-assembly apart to change the diff oil would be a major PITA where you can do it in 10 minutes now.

Dan

Hard to imagine? You are aware of this company's history right??

stumpjumper_09 · **Posted:** Sun Apr 25, 2010 11:40 pm

JL Rockies wrote:

dgeist wrote:

2mopar_diesels wrote:

... Only thing I can come up with as to being a possible problem is the draining and refilling of gear oil. Cause as you can see, with the standard diff cover you only have a fill hole, and to drain you would have to unmount the bracket that bolts to it in able to take the cover off and drain. The OEM cover doesn't work, so we just cut a hole and welded a threaded bung to reuse the drain plug from the factory cover.

Kinda surprised on that one... That's one of the really NICE features about the OEM diff (bottom drain). It's hard to imagine that JBA won't put something like that into a 1.1 version. Taking the whole sub-assembly apart to change the diff oil would be a major PITA where you can do it in 10 minutes now.

Dan

Hard to imagine? You are aware of this company's history right??

Before or after Marlin took over?

JL Rockies · **Posted:** Sun Apr 25, 2010 11:41 pm

2mopar_diesels wrote:

dgeist wrote:

2mopar_diesels wrote:

... Only thing I can come up with as to being a possible problem is the draining and refilling of gear oil. Cause as you can see, with the standard diff cover you only have a fill hole, and to drain you would have to unmount the bracket that bolts to it in able to take the cover off and drain. The OEM cover doesn't work, so we just cut a hole and welded a threaded bung to reuse the drain plug from the factory cover.

Kinda surprised on that one... That's one of the really NICE features about the OEM diff (bottom drain). It's hard to imagine that JBA won't put something like that into a 1.1 version. Taking the whole sub-assembly apart to change the diff oil would be a major PITA where you can do it in 10 minutes now.

Dan

Marlin has already been notified of this, and all future diffs will be modified as such.

Historically, JBA customers have been the only source of R&D.

JL Rockies · **Posted:** Sun Apr 25, 2010 11:41 pm

stumpjumper_09 wrote:

Before or after Marlin took over?

No.

stumpjumper_09 · **Posted:** Sun Apr 25, 2010 11:45 pm

JL Rockies wrote:

stumpjumper_09 wrote:

Before or after Marlin took over?

No.

HUH?!?!

tommudd · **Posted:** Sun Apr 25, 2010 11:48 pm

Kinda surprised on that one... That's one of the really NICE features about the OEM diff (bottom drain). It's hard to imagine that JBA won't put something like that into a 1.1 version. Taking the whole sub-assembly apart to change the diff oil would be a major PITA where you can do it in 10 minutes now.

Dan[/quote]

Marlin has already been notified of this, and all future diffs will be modified as such.[/quote]

Historically, JBA customers have been the only source of R&D.[/quote]

AND that's why he has great products. Staying in touch with your customers, upgrading if needed, taking into account anything that could ever be a problem. Yes he makes a quality product and if you ever do have a problem its taken care of , no questions asked. Better than Optima batteries for example, better than some of the remarks you get from ARB etc.! :wink:

steel front diff

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