Dana 30 Rebuild Guide Pt.1: K Suspension Axle Truss, IRO Axle Sleeve, Cut n' Turn (FIX YOUR CASTER!)

[@petekossaras1830]

Very informative video, love how your dog made himself right at home in front of the camera! LOL

[@SR3711]

Thank you for the thorough video. Put my mind at ease about tackling my axle build.

[@drowsyghost]

0:20 good boye! Perfect opening shot

[@mellowinsanity3492]

29:21 did you just try to blow the flame out 🤣

[@alfredojimenez-kj5hl]

The reference angle from the face of the diff cover is irrelevant. As long as your initial markings are at the stock position, you could have just zeroed the angle finder on the Inner C and rotate from there.

[@jbhk7977]

Wow, awesome video mate, I was thinking about doing something like this myself but never thought about cutting the C's off. I was thinking about drilling away the spot welds that hold the tubes in place (if there are any welds at all) and pressing the tubes out of the pumpkin, rotate them and press them back in again and weld along the sleeve of the pumpkin so I keep the C's untouched.

[@trailandco]

I think this would be better than what I did if you have the means. That or do the same at the cs, press out and rotate. My method has worked fine strength wise but as far as alignment was not nearly as accurate as it would have been had I been able to press them back on the tube.

[@imhann98]

Great video man. The quality all around is awesome👍🏻

[@levistevenson8740]

good video man especially on the cut and turn

[@shilohl3191]

Great Video!

[@silenttraveler2710]

A Awesome Tutorial, Thanks 🙏

[@edwardhegarty750]

I know it's a three year old video, but I have to point out some errors. The axle is suspended by parallel links. So as the suspension extends the pinion does not stay pointed at the transfer case. It drops vertically and keeps the same pinion angle relative to the frame. Vibration is caused by a disparity in the angle correction given by the U joints at each end of the driveshaft. 'Aiming' the pinion at the transfer case causes the problem. Lowering the transfer case will help with driveshaft deflection angles. The rotation caused by lift kits is due to engineering mistakes in the less expensive kits. It can be corrected with adjustable links. When the lift goes beyond 4" it is time to go to long arms. Not because of pinion angle, rather to keep the front axle from swinging back towards the middle of the vehicle.

[@Thundarr995]

Harmonic balancer puller works great for removing pinion yokes. Might have to buy longer bolts with the same thread as your pinion yoke. Before I had the right too to hold the pinion yoke for reinstallation,I used a really old large pipe wrench that I picked up at a garage sale about 25 years ago. It is about 3 feet long, and it's bent. Every time I use it, I can't help but wonder how the heck it got bent. It's gotta be the oldest tool I own. Maybe it got run over by a 🚂

[@andrewerickson6690]

The real star is the pup 🙂

[@kateylaye7912]

Love this video!! This is my plan with mine!

[@jeremyhanna3852]

You should have welded the tubes to diff at factory seam and on the short side i stick welded it due to limited space for the gun

[@DANEMSPRINGER]

Excellent video bro!

[@ericksandoval4953]

Wow bro, your the best

[@gregj.gotham4402]

Got to be a lot of work cut and weld the C ‘s yet you don’t have to worry about the drive shaft angles to transfer case. Set your camber only once. Buy longer saw all blades will help. Preheat both pcs with a good rosebud, torch set up get about 450 degrees, weld it and wrap up the weld area with a asbestos blanket it’s not the same kind of asbestos. Where you have to worry about any fibers getting into your lungs. Slow cool down is the best welding cast steel. If it’s cast iron use a high nickel compound welding wire or a stainless steel wire using argon gas. Other wise you can get weld rejection, cracks, holes within the weld.

[@juleanprater9721]

Is this a hp Dana 30? Will work with low pinion?

[@moejr14]

How do you like that cav fab steering? And death wobble

[@trailandco]

On one hand the steering has held up great super strong and have had 0 wear issues with the heims. However next time will go with TREs, I don't like how the tie rod bounces around freely and makes noise. It was a pain to silence it. Cavfab does not cause death wobble I would do more research to find your issue

[@emiliomartinez788]

Please show how you did the hidden winch on the stock bumper!!

[@trailandco]

The system is called boostwerks engineering comp mount

[@robertweinstein6441]

Did I catch you are also doing the WJ knuckles and big brakes. Martin built also went with 1 ton over axle steering…is that compatible with this process? I will echo the previous comment awesome video!

[@trailandco]

This is something I'm actually trying to work out at the moment! Yes compatible with everything here but I will need to figure out my steering setup

[@robertweinstein6441]

@@trailandco so might be worth a Separate video if it is possible. free spin kit? I saw that on a blippen jeep offering

[@gagaforkaka]

could you comment about the way the steering feels with proper caster versus not enough. thanks .

[@trailandco]

Proper caster will keep you driving straight on the road and will allow your steering wheel to return to center after a turn. It's a great improvement to the drivability of the jeep, otherwise it wanders all over the highway with low caster

[@St.Hermans_Speed_Shop]

Great video but why wouldn’t you upgrade to a Dana 44 or bigger?

[@trailandco]

I would love to but unfortunately the bolt in dana 44s are impossible to come by around here unless you want to shell out 5 gs for a dynatrac. At the time D44 didn't seem worth it for my purposes. Now I'd like to move to 35s eventually and would consider it if the d30 ever gave me issues. But this axle has been awesome

[@fjnagle2nd]

Seems like this method would really weaken the axle at the weld point. Is that why you put the axle sleeves in?

[@trailandco]

Yes. The sleeves alone are thicker than the base axle housing so all in all I believe the end result to be far stronger than the original

[@killiann2121]

This is by far the wrong way your not suppose to cut the end off only the welds and turn the knuckle on the tube

[@stevebraun8217]

I might of missed it, but what type and size is your lift?

[@trailandco]

5.5" rubicon express

[@thomasharman4660]

Well? How have the welds held up? Been considering this for my TJ

[@trailandco]

Welds have held up great. If I were to do it again though I would have purchased a rig to align everything more precisely however. It's not prefect

[@moejr14]

What welder did you use? Can I do this with my miller 135 mig welder?

[@trailandco]

I have an esab rebel emp 215, running it on 110. This was really pushing it I was popping my breaker often but these welds need to be strong. If you're machine runs 220 definitely use that but you can get away with 110v

[@pochopdaddy5667]

Just wondering? Just rotating the knuckle, doesn't that throw off your spring perch angle?

[@oleroy4749]

Not if done correctly. All that should change is the angle of the inner C’s, if your math is rite.

[@jeffd1467]

​@Ole Roy I had the same question. It's impossible that the spring perches didn't rotate. They would have rotated just as much as your new pinion angle did. I'm assuming that you rotated your pinion to align with the driveshaft. It must have been out of alignment prior to the cut. It seems like cutting near the diff would eliminate this issue. Is it possible to cut near the diff?

[@sector783]

Is a stock Dana 30 axle (not trussed, sleeves, no HD ball joints) strong enough to run 35’s and be able to wheel moderately?

[@trailandco]

Many say it is. I'm only on 33s so I can't speak to it. But I think the rule of thumb is 35s you're ok if you stay off the skinny pedal

[@ProjectXJ]

I ran 33's on the stock axle for a long time and didn't have any issues. When i tore off my upper control arm bracket, i went ahead and fixed it with a truss. Great opportunity to upgrade!

[@sector783]

@@ProjectXJ Yeah I thought about putting a truss on my Dana 30. Probably well worth it in the long run. But eventually I think I want to run 37‘s so I will definitely have to do away with the Dana 30 and upgrade. But I agree, I’ll probably just wait until I absolutely have to replace some thing

[@ProjectXJ]

@Sector 7 yeah 37 is a lot of tire. Someone in my jeep club has a jku on 37's with a 5.7 hemi on a dana 30 axle. Oddly enough they snapped a Chromoly 44 rear shaft and made it off the trail relying solely on the dana 30. Lol

[@sector783]

@@ProjectXJ oh wow! That is hilarious!

[@shooter77us]

Should have pulled the ball joints and measured from the ball joint bores and you could have had reliable measurements.

[@killiann2121]

Why did you not just cut the welds? And not cut the axle tube all the way threw

[@trailandco]

I was trying to avoid cutting off the spring perches, it didn't seem possible to cut the welds without it. However if I were to do it again I would cut the perches off and grind the welds as you said

[@thehouseman81]

Ok your not wrong but for the amount of lift you way over did this. Good job but again a little bit for these mods

[@trailandco]

Disagree, this made a huge difference.

[@thehouseman81]

@@trailandco so you ran it both ways? Only reason I was saying this is we have installed lots of lifts and thousands of people have lifted their rigs and almost no one does this

[@DCarter355]

I was thinking this was overkill too. My XJ is about 6.5” now on long arms, on 33s going to 35s now. Alignment is within spec and drives straight down the highway, barely have to touch the wheel, no vibrations either from pinion angle. But if it works for him and it’s what he wanted, more power to him.

[@Bobbywolf64]

This is not how you would ideally do a cut and turn. The "right" way to do it is to only cut the weld at the C's, without cutting into the axle tube. The C's are pressed onto the original axle tube. With the weld cut, you then hammer off the C, grind off all the weld and prep for rewelding, rotate it, then hammer it back on at the desired angle. This way you do not lose any of the original axle strength. The way you did it relies only on your add-on sleeve, and weld for strength, which is weaker than leaving the original tube intact.

[@trailandco]

You are correct I believe I mentioned this in the video. Given that the axle sleeve is thicker than the original axle tube I would not agree that this was weaker however. If I didn't do the axle sleeve then this would not be a good way to do it.