Regeared the Jeep this weekend. Started about 10am on Saturday and finished up about 4pm on Sunday. Took a while to get it figured out. Neither of us has ever done the Rubicon D44 with the external shims and the air lockers. We also wasted over an hour trying to get my pinion depth tool to work and never did get dependable repeatable measurements.
The carrier bearing both front and rear looked like this. My guess is it sat for several years with a lot of moisture in the axles and the bearings rusted.
Someone had replaced the DS rear wheel bearing at some point and they cut into the sealing surface when the took the old bearing off. That explains why the wheel seal is leaking. That cost $115 to learn and I'll still have to replace the whole shaft to get that leak stopped.
Sometime in its past, it lost a front u-joint and carved up the DS wheel bearing bolts and bent the ears on the inner shaft. It took some beating to get the ears straight and a new joint in. I'll have to replace the wheel bearing bolts as soon as I can get them ordered.
On the whole it went OK though. The new gears dramatically improved highway driving but it's highlighted a few other issues to address. Firstly, the drive shaft u-joints and front double cardan joint need replaced. The front starts shaking at about 65mph which is around 3500rpm for the front shaft with the 32s and 5.13s.
It was SO nice having my buddy's lift but he lacks some of the specialty tools I have and I didn't realize that so there was some struggling to make due on that front.
Hopefully this is my last time regearing this thing. If I blow up a R&P in the future, I'm gonna be powerful tempted to go 60-9 hybrid.
