'59 Rear Axle Upgrades

I'm curious if maybe the front cover you got from the Blazer someone had swapped in a high pinion cover from a 1/2 ton Ford front axle. There are slight variations in where the fill plugs are at in Dana 44 covers but the only ones I've seen other than aftermarket covers that have the fill plugs that high are from the high pinion axles. Got any pics? Love to see them as I've very curious about this.
Nickmil

 

It was an original off a '76 Blazer. It is identical to the one on my '72 Jimmy. If I get a chance, I'll shoot some pics. Got a 4 year olds B-day to put on Saturday and Mother's day Sunday, so not much garage time this week.

I've got a 74 CJ rear 44 in the driveway, and it's fill is in an even different location.

 

It has occured to me that if a Jeep was kept with a four cylinder, or a six- driven reasonably- with moderate sized tires and maintained with TLC that it could still be running 100 years from now. Just look at how well the ill maintained Jeeps have stayed alive-- though abused.

Yep My 1966 CJ6 has zerks on the housing, under the outboard wheel bearings--- I gave them a couple of pumps of Wheel Bearing Grease when I Changed to 11" brakes. I would now like to stand in the crowd-- on my soap box to say : It is important to use WHEEL BEARING Grease- NOT regular grease-- like for tie rod ends, and ball joints--- wheel bearing grease works better under the higher demands in a wheel bearing. With this said, I am sure that many hear know this-- but I did not realize it for many years-- that there was a difference and that the difference in kinds of grease could be significant.

Wheel bearing grease will squirt out in a 1/8" dia string out of the top relief hole in the housing above the bearing. Due to the thick consistency of real Wheel bearing grease-- the hole entry does not ordinarily represent a problem to water entering inside--- UNLESS you surmerge the axle in water or watery loose mud. ---
Still if the bearing is packed with true Wheel bearing grease and the relief hole is filled with grease-- the bearing likely will not be affected.---- If you Do wheeling in the Mountians and are not crossing swamps-- then the standard greasing holes will not present a threat to the wheel bearings----If and you ford a creeks a lot-- or you go mudding axle deep-- then tap your relief hole--- and run a vent hose up high-- and what ever... it or clog the hole-- --- but remember do the same on all your gear boxes too. My Jeep came from Mud country of the Ozarks-- and the diffs were a slury of grease and foam residue from high humidity and water in the diff. It must have been that way for years---But when I cleaned it all out and did new seals and regreased everything-- the axle remained usable. It could stand to be rebuilt-- but I bet I could run it daily for 10 years before it houled--or seriously overheated or threatened to fail---.

The life of an axle or gear box on a Jeep is a hard one---off-roading and fording streams-- and tracking though deep mud is very hard on any vehicle-- so after such adventures wash and grease to remove mud, and water from bearings---

You will also get loose mud inside your brakes-- and inside other places that will do serious damage if not removed after doing wet and muddy trails.


You can see for yourselves when you take apart a 40-60 year old off-road vehicle the damage--- and at the same time marvel that the axle surrvived so many years-- only being greased and cleaned every 10 years or so. Just think how well it will do if you greased it much more often--- changed the diff oil every year and soforth--- under these better conditions it will last 100 years.

 

That's the one Howard! Thanks for the pic. I was thinking it was on top but it is indeed on the back..
Nickmil

 

It is my understanding (from reading) that early trac-loc wore out rather quickly, however, the later model trac-locs are holding up well. I had a 2002 Wrangler with a factory installed trac-loc. After 120,000 miles the trac-loc still worked fine.