Awesome you found a guy who'll let you watch and help! I love finding people like that as well!!

LOL... Well having had nothing but an auto-locker in the front, I can say that I don't ever notice it until I am in 4WD with the hubs locked. With the hubs unlocked, it can't have an effect on the tires as there is no longer a direct connection. I think the most annoying thing about an auto locker in the front is the increase in turning radius. With the Atlas, you can pull the front drive out and you gain back most, if not all, of it back. Those who can't do that, I can see where a switch on the dash helps immensely. A switch is easier until the locker fails due to an airline leak or worse yet, an o-ring. That's a time consuming endeavor to replace a $2 o-ring. With a quality Auto-locker you shouldn't have to worry about for a long time!

What does Gearworks recommend? The Yukon Zip is air too? I don't know much about it.

Unfortunately, GW had nothing to recommend and didn't try to talk me into an auto locker in the front (and they make a billet auto locker I'm sure would never break). They don't handle Yukon so they had no input. I think the "problems" with ARB are going to be the same with Yukon Zip lockers. I did some searches and there was some talk of parts of the Yukon that were plastic that were concerns for durability vs ARB. I didn't read into it much because I just figured I'd go with ARB. If GW chooses ARB over Zip, I'm going to trust them. If Ox would make a cable locker, I'd 100% go with it, kinked/stretched cables seem to be their weak link. E-lockers sound great but aren't made for the 9" either. The Eaton design unlocks for a partial rotation if you go from forward to reverse, so some say this is a problem. The electro magnet also adds heat to the gear oil. You have to make some concession with every option.

I spoke to GW on Friday and I think they are going to allow me to buy my ARBs from someone else and credit me back. I hate to do that but they have no idea when they will get theirs. Quick Performance has them on the shelf.

I went out 2x this weekend. Saturday was just a causal bounce around in the desert. It was my first day out with the new rear bump stops, exhaust, OBA, etc. I didn't air down and the bump stops were hitting all the time, exhaust sounds great (surprised the $25 muffler might be quieter than the $90 Dynomax). The bump stop sound was annoying, but everything worked ok.

Yesterday I went on a fairly serious run with a very serious exit. Everything went very well. With the tires aired down the rear bumps engaged far less, despite the more challenging trail. The leaking bump stop seems to be sealing up, so hopefully it just needs worked in and not rebuilt. I had swapped my 6 blade ridged fan for a stock 7 blade, it is slightly larger and my radiator must not be perfectly centered on the fan. The 6 blade cleared fine, I have a slight tick with the 7 blade under power so I'll have to adjust the shroud a bit.

The exit of the run was a "7 out of 10 plus some ice", and the biggest rocks/toughest trail I've ever tried. The trail guide knows the trail well and expected I'd need a pull or two because my front isn't locked. I managed to get through with only a little spotting, a single rock placed so I could readjust a line, and a trail scar to my left fender. It was our guide's fastest trip through the trail ever. I think my performance surprised him. Without 11.6:1 gears it would have been a different story, total gamechanger. I couldn't be happier with how my rig is performing, it's far exceeding my expectations, and impressing seasoned wheelers. I'm not sure what to expect after adding a front locker and changing from 3.50s to 5.13s, it's going to get scary. All the rigs and drivers were pretty serious crawlers and I kept up with all of them, I'm definitely being challenged.

I'm still shocked by all the looks and comments the Bronco gets, they are definitely the hot truck right now. Lots of talk about the new Bronco, Broncos at KOH, and stares from people on the road/trail.

Well, I tried...LOL! In the end, you have to be happy with what you buy so I really hope it all works out that way!!

Glad to hear things went well on your trail rides! It's fun to push your limits!

ARB's made it to Gearworks today. They said they should have my diffs ready in a few days.

This weekend I bit the bullet and chopped off the ends of the TG axle housings. I've measured every way I think possible, so it was time to start making expensive decisions.

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I'm shooting for a WMS to match my 79 F150/Bronco axles. 65-7/8" front and 65-1/2" rear.

Some housekeeping I've been plugging away at:
-Cleaned up and regreased 2 sets of D60 locking hubs, one Ford one Warn. I'll run the Warns first with the Ford as back ups. There is almost no difference.
-Cleaned up the knuckles, inner c's, spindles, hubs. I have 4 hubs, 2 D60 spindles and 2 D50 spindles. The D50s will be back up for the D60 spindles, there is a slight difference in design. There is some argument if the D50s are inferior. I kind of doubt the difference matters.
-Pulled the brake brackets, etc off my Explorer 8.8
-Moved my fan shroud to better clear my "new" fan

Great news on the lockers! Going to be a fun spring!

Steady progress !

I'm pretty much renaming my rig "Plan B". Because Plan A never seems to actually work.

I met with a guy from our club who builds 14 bolt, steering axles. His home shop is unreal. Haas CNC, 15' lathe, head flow deck, motor dyno, block machining equipment, etc, etc, etc. He's building a 1200 hp Whipple supercharged rockbouncer, drag bikes, and a Willy's dragster. I had to pick my jaw up off the floor.

Needless to say, there isn't much he can't build.

After discussing everything with him, I'm making some changes to my build. The amount of machine work to make 5x5.5" a lug pattern work was going to be very time consuming/$$$$$$. Plus it was not as strong (hubs milled down, semifloat rear axle) and nothing was going to be off the shelf for future repairs.

So, I'm going to go 8x6.5". Unfortunately, this means my beadlocks with about 800 miles on them will get replaced.

The plan is to use all the stock Ford stuff up front and I'm going to use a set of Ruffstuff 14 bolt spindles and do a full floating rear axle. I avoided the full floating idea when I was planning this, because Jason said it would be very difficult to get everything built straight and true. This guy has no problem assembling the housing and spindles for me, and the only other machine work will be to bore the inner C's to 3.5".

My center sections should ship in the next day or two.

So I've got f/w HPD44 & 9" for sale, and a set of nearly new Battle Born Gatekeepers 17x9 steel rims for sale.

Plan B, I love it! That is so awesome you got hooked up with someone who sounds like he is THE MAN!

So now what beadlocks are you going with?

$345/wheel isn't cheap is it? I do like that the ring is thick enough to cover the bolt heads. I wish mine were!

Better late than never

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That's purdy! They didn't go for the 2 for 1 special?

Silver linings my friend..silver linings

(Drools visibly)

Those are sweet!

Thanks. They are pretty awesome. I'll post up more pics when I get them out of the cases. I have to keep the front and rears straight. I can't visibly identify them, but there are differences in some oiling parts.

14 bolt spindles are on b/o hopefully arriving mid March.

So many details to keep track of, they seem to change each time I start working on stuff.

Part of the change from 5x5.5 to 8x6.5 is that I'm not using the Explorer brakes on the back. Instead, I'm using the Chevy calipers I was going to use on the front. I bought the calipers and hoses from Lugnut 4x4 with the Ford front brake adapter I'm no longer going to use. The weird thing is the Chevy banjo bolt is a 10mm, but the banjo fitting on the hoses seems to be 11 mm. There is some slop between the bolt and banjo fitting I don't like. The Explorer hoses I have are 3/8" or about 9.5mm banjo fitting. I am sort of thinking about sending a drill bit through the Explorer banjo to open them up to the 10 mm Chevy banjo bolt size.

Unfortunately the F-350 brake I'm going to use are also 3/8"/9.5mm banjo fittings so I don't think I'll end up using the Lugnut hoses. I'm surprised they are selling an 11mm hose to fit a 10mm bolt. Seems like a bad idea. I'm going to to send them an email asking for explanation and a refund, but the guy has been a pretty opinionated ass in my pervious emails seeking explanations, so I don't really expect much back from him.

You are kinds charting new territory here and that comes with risks. That doesn't make them suck any less.

You have a hydraulic shop that can custom build you brake lines with the fittings you need?

Dang, I'm sorry!! They are nice wheels, and with the offset being 0, they should center the weight well. But I hate that you might have to run spacers. Maybe someone out there has a set they would trade you for?? Long shot...

Hopefully, they are thin enough you can just run longer wheel studs.

Got the inner Cs bored to a .001 -.0015 interference fit.




Picked up a pair of SRW 14 bolt hubs. Still waiting on the spindles from Ruffstuff. Hopefully they received them Friday as scheduled.



It took some effort but I got the C's installed.

Right now I'm at about 7* caster with the pinion angle set at 85* similar to the HPD44. I can hammer the C's on another 1/8" each side which will put me right at 65-7/8”.

Interesting that my driver side inner is longer axle will be longer than the F350. I set the pinion to match the D44 which is very well lined up with the front output of the TCase.






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Looks great from here!!

Interesting...are the spindles a factory replacement for something, or is it a custom thing for Ruffstuff to run 14 bolt hubs on the d60 parts?