Birfied Joint Seperation

[chevypaul]

Hello Guys
I have been working on my LJ80V and have run into the problem with seperating the birfield from the axle. I have read that if you get a piece of pipe. The pipe needs an ID a little larger and needs to be longer then the axle. You place the axle in the pipe and drop it on the end. The axle will or should drop out of the birfield. This might take some kind words and lots of persistance. Mine only took about 20 good drops. Then I moved on to the SJ410 axles. I dropped and threw and chipped my shop floor. The pipe belled. I cleaned out the grease and filled the birfield with WD-40 and let it sit upside down for a week. Then belled the pipe again. So I had to do something different.I decided that the SJ410 axles would have to be sacraficed to let me move on with the LJ.

So I cut the SJ axles off JUST behind the birfield joint. Placed the stub in the vice and carfully removed 4 of the bearings. I then rolled the races over and replaced the bearings. The axle has a dimple in the center and that is were to start. First I drilled a 1/4" hole to 1" and then stepped up to 1/2". I then stepped up to an 11/16" drill bit. The 11/16" drill bit is the same size as the axle in the C-clip slot so as you drill the axle will seperate at the C-clip notch. you can then pull the bearings again and remove the piece of axle.Clean out the the birfield of old grease and drill shavings. Blow clean with air,regrease and reinstall the bearings. Remember that the C-clip notch must be pointed to the INSIDE of the birfield.

Thanks!!
Paul

[jones]

I just had the same problem because I'm putting disk brakes on my LJ front end. The way I'm doing it you put the SJ410 birf on the LJ axle shaft using the cage and star from the inside of the LJ birf.

My LJ birfs and one SJ one came apart with the pipe method but the last SJ one was super stuck.

Instead of cutting the shaft I found I was able to cut the cage and get the balls out one at a time. Once the balls were all out I was able to remove the star from the cage and pull it from the birf. Then I pulled what was left of the cage from the birf and I was good to go.

By cutting the cage instead of the axle the axle can still go in the spare part pile. This way the only part I have to write off is the cage from the SJ birf.

I hope I explained that well enough. Here's a pic of mine all apart.

[zukimoo]

there is a company about 3 hours away from me that rebuilds these joints. We had broken one on a Hummer H1 and we got it done there....they used hyinday parts...yup for a hummer. Held up too.