Solid rear axle conversion (in the works)

[GOTGOO]

Well i picked up an 08 frontier C200K rear diff yesterday with 30k miles and blown spider gears with the proper 3.357 ratio. I pulled the cover and the ring and pinion gears look new so i'm gonna order some spider gears for it and call it good! I still have alot to get as far as parts like the leaf springs, Adj. lift shackles, front leaf mount welded to the frame and brake lines. I'm doing this on a small budget and lets all thank AndrewVK over at club frontier for donating his old rear diff to get me started! I'll post some pics when i get a chance. Just wanted to get the word out and ill keep up with further progress updates.

Edit:

[pawjr74]

There may be a locker application for that axle too.

[Captain]

The wear on the gears is from excessive tire spin. I seen it all the time when I rebuilt rear ends for Eaton. They must of done alot of muddin or burnouts.

[GOTGOO]

There may be a locker application for that axle too.

I think somebody does, but i'm gonna put it back to stock specs for now cause its around $220 for all 4 gears i need.

The wear on the gears is from excessive tire spin. I seen it all the time when I rebuilt rear ends for Eaton. They must of done alot of muddin or burnouts.

Um both from what he told me and he was running much larger tires 35x12.50. I will still be running 265/75/16's and will play in the dirt alot so we will see what happens.

[xd9-g19]

Nice cant wait to see it.

[Captain]

Make sure you clean out the axle shafts and housing out realy well to get any metal out and change all Bearings, Seals, Gears.

The type of damage show is from one tire spining alot faster than the other. (burn outs/ mudding ) not from over sized tires. I would see the same thing on trucks that would be stuck in the snow on a loading ramp and the driver spining one set of tires tring to get off the ramp with a load. One thing I learned from working with Eaton is _ Metal never lies._ I see Blueing from excessive heat and you will prob find out that the spider gear cross pin is going to be realy hard to get out. from being almost welded on. I did alot of dealer warranty work for Eaton and I would kick back the warranty claim and would deny the warranty saying excessive wheel spin. Some times manufactoring does make bad gears but you would see only one spider being completely damaged and one would be ground up and the cross pin would be ok.
Take my word for it, that Axle was abused and all interals need to be replaced inorder to make sure you get a long working axle.

[GOTGOO]

Make sure you clean out the axle shafts and housing out realy well to get any metal out and change all Bearings, Seals, Gears.

The type of damage show is from one tire spining alot faster than the other. (burn outs/ mudding ) not from over sized tires. I would see the same thing on trucks that would be stuck in the snow on a loading ramp and the driver spining one set of tires tring to get off the ramp with a load. One thing I learned from working with Eaton is _ Metal never lies._ I see Blueing from excessive heat and you will prob find out that the spider gear cross pin is going to be realy hard to get out. from being almost welded on. I did alot of dealer warranty work for Eaton and I would kick back the warranty claim and would deny the warranty saying excessive wheel spin. Some times manufactoring does make bad gears but you would see only one spider being completely damaged and one would be ground up and the cross pin would be ok.
Take my word for it, that Axle was abused and all interals need to be replaced inorder to make sure you get a long working axle.

I'm gonna have it checked out by a pro, but i dont want to replace the ring and pinion its like $500. Thanks for the input i will be taking your advice.

[richardekirby]

Nice cant wait to see it.

+1.

The ironic thing is that last week I had an arguement with a guy on another pathy forum (mostly wd21s and r50s) on whether this would be done or not. He did not think so. He thought nobody would do it because xterras already have a solid axle in the back, so nobody would go through the trouble with a pathy. I told him the rear solid axle was the easy part and the front would be more difficult, but could be done. He did say he has seen some xterras with solid front axles already and since they have the same front ends, it is the same process for the pathy. You may want to look at some xterra forums if you decide to do that next. Keep us posted.

[Sven1olaf]

great project. can't wait to see the results.

quick question, I'm new to vehicle mods and am gaining confidence one step at a time:

isn't the solid axle going to raise the rear end a bit as the axle needs to be mounted to the chassis and will be naturally lower than the split axle?

[GOTGOO]

great project. can't wait to see the results.

quick question, I'm new to vehicle mods and am gaining confidence one step at a time:

isn't the solid axle going to raise the rear end a bit as the axle needs to be mounted to the chassis and will be naturally lower than the split axle?

Well i have a frontier axle where the leaf springs mounted on top as where the xterra the leafs go under the axle. I also hear the xterras leafs have more of an arch and also a shackle drop bracket to make up for the axle being mounted on thop of the springs. So heres my plan frontier axle+xterra leafs+adjustable rear shackles=pretty darn close to where im at now(i hope). I figured id have to account for some sag from the extra ass the pathy has and i hope the shackles make up for it. I still need to look into titan leafs dont know much differnt they are.

[GOTGOO]

Also on another note im having trouble finding a junk yard who will let me cut this mount out of a frame....

[kev1n]

Can't wait to see this!! Maybe you can get a machine shop to fab those mounts up ?

[richardekirby]

Also on another note im having trouble finding a junk yard who will let me cut this mount out of a frame....

Hey, I linked your post to another forum and got some info for you. A guy suggested you check out http://www.ballisticfabrication.com/Che ... _1181.html for your spring mounts. Hope it helps you out.

[GOTGOO]

Also on another note im having trouble finding a junk yard who will let me cut this mount out of a frame....

Hey, I linked your post to another forum and got some info for you. A guy suggested you check out http://www.ballisticfabrication.com/Che ... _1181.html for your spring mounts. Hope it helps you out.

Thanks for the heads up I think i can make them work for sure!!!

[180sx]

very nice! Hope this goes well!!