Shaving a Rear Axle
Shaving an axle housing to increase ground clearance
By: Mr Stubs
Originally posted on the NWToys Forum
I have done this mod to a few different rear ends and find that it is a very good one to do. The average shave job will net 1" more of ground clearance under the rear diff and this is the equivalent of a 2" tire size (36" to 38" for example). Before I show what I have done let me post a couple links to Pirate, they may give more inspiration or give you a better idea on how to tackle this job.
First remove the third and axles then cut a cardboard template.... 5" by 8" trapezoid roughly and set it on the bottom of the axle housing. This will give you a idea on where to start. You will also need to decide if you want to keep the baffles in the axle tubes. I remove mine as they seemed to be in my way when welding on the replacement plate later.
Stuff the axle tubes with rags if you have cave man tools like me (grinder/cutting wheel) to keep the junk out of them and cut away.
IMOP it is important to have a spare junker third (housing at least) for clearance of the new plate and welding of the new plate (helps with housing warpage)
Next is to grab a bit more cardboard and make a new template for the replacement piece. You can be as simple or as extreme as you want on how you make this plate. I took a single piece of 1/4 steel and scored it along with a 4lb sledge and vise to get my bends right and then welded my score marks for safe measure.
Then you need to make sure that you have adequate clearance from the ring gear to the new plate. 1/8" is the minimum. Remember that you may re-gear at a latter date so take this into consideration as well. I found that a dab of RVT will work well to figure out how close the ring gear is from the new plate. As you can see in the pic I had to grind a touch.
Take care wile welding on the plate even with the third bolted up. Too much weld and not enough cooling will warp the mating surface even with the third bolted up tight.
Now that the magnetic drain plug is gone This is what I like to do. I take and JB weld in a magnet tot the bottom of the housing next to the ring gear to pick up the junk. Harbor freight has them for cheap....
You now no longer have a drain plug as well. This is fixed one of two ways. The bottom two studs can be replaced with bolts (8mm 125 pitch) to drain oil or you can just break the seal on the diff and release all of the oil quick. This is what mine looked like after the shave off the rig and then on the rig.... Flat bottom!!!
This pick is my rig with 35-10.5-15 Boggers
