Alright! Some more updates. Today, I drilled my hubs in accordance with the post I linked in my previous post. I drilled a #31 hole followed by a #3 partial hole for the zerk. The zerk hole gets tapped to 1/4-28 with patience and lots of oil. Since I have a 5 bolt hub, I'm going to try out these "flush mount" grease fittings, Moog 621. The should allow me to use a grease needle to add grease to the hubs. This is because there isn't a place on my hubs to put the fitting that would clear both the wheel and the lug stud. We'll see how it goes! The fittings should be in at the end of next week.
Next, I put some paint on my axle shafts. After about 30 minutes on the wire wheel, the shafts were cleaned up and ready for a couple coats of rust encapsulator, followed by Extreme Chassis Black. I was careful to mask off all seal/bearing surfaces before painting. Once that paint has cured, I'll press in my new U-joints.
Finally, I removed the carrier. Two pry bars and some patience was all it took. This gave me access to the blob of mud sitting in the bottom (see picture of diff cover). Thankfully, it was never driven with this mud inside, so the gears/bearings are in pretty good shape. The backlash measured at 0.012", which IIRC is in spec. I'll double check it. Then I pulled the pinion. I expected a crush sleeve, but found only shims, so I suppose it's one of those axles where the pinion preload is set with shims. There's a useful post on this forum that talks about that (
https://www.jeep-cj.com/forums/f2/dana-44-30-rebuild-question-12377/ among others). It's unfortunately difficult sometimes to sort out the new jeep info from the old jeep info. I guess that's why this forum exists!!! I damaged a shim while pulling the pinion, so I'll need to replace that, but it doesn't look like any of the bearings need replacing, so that's good news. It's remarkable, really, since the thing was underwater for a day or two a few years back...
Next up, I get to clean, strip, and paint the housing. Then the reassembly begins. It's starting to take shape!
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