2010.10.23 - UPDATE! - MORE TIRES & PORTAL PROGRESS...
It was getting silly trying to set my axle track widths with only a single tire, so I bit the bullet and bought the remaining four that I will eventually need.
I still needed to resolve the issues I'd created with the first re-assembled portal box, so I pulled it back apart and inspected the splines on both parts.... (those grooves up the middle of the wider splines are NOT supposed to be there!) Those were chiseled into the part by a sharp leading edge of the large lower gear splines.
Here's the damage on the opposite part... You can more easily see those narrow splines and the very sharp initial edge that gouged the hub in the previous photo. You can also see some "curls" of metal in the anti-seize paste a little further down.
After some polishing of all the sharp leading edges and gentle radiusing of all the edges I finally got it looking more like this:
The assembly went much smoother after that and I was able to finally get the portal loaded into the back of one of my new wheel/tire combos... Here's a shot with the portal, the 1" spacer and no rotor (yet). With the rotor installed, there is a chance that I won't even need to use the spacer to get the clearance around the wheel. It will depend on how large the caliper is too, I'm sure....
Here's a shot under the rear of the truck to show how far the portal encroaches on the links and shock area.....it ended up being a lot more compact and "tucked in" than I'd expected. Obviously, I will need to cut the axletubes down to get the wheel stuffed under the wheelwells a few more inches. However in this shot it's clear that I've got almost 12" of axletube between the current link mounts, and the back of the portal so it looks like there is still plenty of room to work with!
One more shot from across the underside of the truck. It's not bolted in or anything....mainly just taking a look to see what I've got so far.
That's all the progress for today.... next update will probably be late Monday night.
It was getting silly trying to set my axle track widths with only a single tire, so I bit the bullet and bought the remaining four that I will eventually need.
I still needed to resolve the issues I'd created with the first re-assembled portal box, so I pulled it back apart and inspected the splines on both parts.... (those grooves up the middle of the wider splines are NOT supposed to be there!) Those were chiseled into the part by a sharp leading edge of the large lower gear splines.
Here's the damage on the opposite part... You can more easily see those narrow splines and the very sharp initial edge that gouged the hub in the previous photo. You can also see some "curls" of metal in the anti-seize paste a little further down.
After some polishing of all the sharp leading edges and gentle radiusing of all the edges I finally got it looking more like this:
The assembly went much smoother after that and I was able to finally get the portal loaded into the back of one of my new wheel/tire combos... Here's a shot with the portal, the 1" spacer and no rotor (yet). With the rotor installed, there is a chance that I won't even need to use the spacer to get the clearance around the wheel. It will depend on how large the caliper is too, I'm sure....
Here's a shot under the rear of the truck to show how far the portal encroaches on the links and shock area.....it ended up being a lot more compact and "tucked in" than I'd expected. Obviously, I will need to cut the axletubes down to get the wheel stuffed under the wheelwells a few more inches. However in this shot it's clear that I've got almost 12" of axletube between the current link mounts, and the back of the portal so it looks like there is still plenty of room to work with!
One more shot from across the underside of the truck. It's not bolted in or anything....mainly just taking a look to see what I've got so far.
That's all the progress for today.... next update will probably be late Monday night.
