Awd sleeve in disconnect.

[Feets001]

I have started the suspension rebuild on my 03 Tb. It has 159 thousand miles on it. God must love me because the outer tie rod separated in my hands. I am installing the 3" lift with Moog 8111 springs. The inner tie rod feels tight so I'm taking a chance.. cash flow issues. Everything will be new control arms and all. The question I have is about the axle disconnect. Should I rebuild the disconnect or take a chance? I know for a fact the last 8 years of the trucks like it has been in 4x4 maybe 10 times.

[DirtyBacon04]

open the disco, look at condition of components (especially bearings). If they are good, then just scrape out the old grease which I'm sure more resembles a rock than grease, and put some fresh Mobil 1 synthetic grease and slap that bitch back in.
Or you could do one of the "redneck AWD" mods that afew have posted, if you don't want to spend the money on the actual AWD sleeve

[Feets001]

Semper Fi, and will do. I have never removed a drive axle, just pry it out, and what holds it in?

[Opeth]

If cash flow is an issue you really should think twice before adding a lift. Several parts are going to be subjected to new harsher angles and parts will fail at faster rates. You really should have a bit of money available to fix issues when they arise if this is a daily driver. Ball joints, TRE's, end links, bushings, and bearings are the most common to go shortly after lifting. Just a heads up, be safe!

[Trail X]

Semper Fi, and will do. I have never removed a drive axle, just pry it out, and what holds it in?

It has a radial retainer clip that expands inside a cavity once the half shaft is inserted into the disconnect. To remove, you have to force the retainer clip to constrict enough to come back through the hole. This generally requires hammering towards the wheel with a drift into the tripod housing of the half shaft. Or, you can use a nifty attachment for a slide hammer if you have one:

[bartonmd]

Oh the disconnect side, I just took the cover of the disco off and got the half shaft out of the outer gear with a drift, on the bench. No such luck on the driver's side, so when I replaced the bearing on the driver side, I got that same slide hammer attachment above, with the biggest slide hammer I could buy, and worked at getting it out, plus prying with 2 wonder-bars (the thin crow-bars), for like 3 hours. Then, it took me like 15 minutes to change the seal and put it all back together...

Mike

[DirtyBacon04]

wow mike. thats way more work than i've ever had to do to get that out.
On the diff side, I loop a strap around the inner tripod, route it around the rear of the spindle, then bring it forward and hook it to my front shackle. I ratchet it until it's super tight, then just tap on the diff lightly a few times and it pops right out. takes all of 4 minutes

[KingBird]

wow mike. thats way more work than i've ever had to do to get that out.
On the diff side, I loop a strap around the inner tripod, route it around the rear of the spindle, then bring it forward and hook it to my front shackle. I ratchet it until it's super tight, then just tap on the diff lightly a few times and it pops right out. takes all of 4 minutes

Genius!

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[Feets001]

Axle came out pretty easy. The disconnect was a little trouble, but I kept prying with a small crow bar from side to side. Nervous about having to tap it back in thou. Everything in the disco. Looked good, the grease was yellow and soft with a little black. All I did was clean and repack. I did use valvoline synthetic grease because that's what the store had. Oh God loves me. The outer tie rod was so worn when I cut the rubber boot, the ball stup fell out of the socket part of it. Scary. Thanks for the help.

[Feets001]

Well I pussed out. I got the coil spring off the strut with a Harbor Freight spring compressor. I didn't like the look of the compressors so I bought a Powerbuilt spring compressor set. Grabbed, and squeezed all I could but still lacked an inch before coming out the top of the three inch lift spacer. Gonna take it to a shop somewhere for assembly.

[Anthony Hernandez]

I never read about what the awd sleeve actually does for us, and you shouldn't have had an issue compressing it enough, try to lower it down some and use a impact.. Should only take like 15 total... First time I did it it took about 3 hrs hahaha.. Oh the learning curve...

[Jrgunn5150]

I never read about what the awd sleeve actually does for us, and you shouldn't have had an issue compressing it enough, try to lower it down some and use a impact.. Should only take like 15 total... First time I did it it took about 3 hrs hahaha.. Oh the learning curve...

The AWD sleeve has no moving/sliding/splined parts to fail. It's simply a solid sleeve, front diff is always engaged.

[Anthony Hernandez]

But wouldn't it wear down shit more if it's constantly engaged?

[DirtyBacon04]

in theory, perhaps. But with all the added wear we put on our components anyway, any decrease in longevity caused by the CV permanently engaged to the I-shaft would be negligible

[TBYODA]

Not any different than any other AWD version of the TB and we don't hear of premature failures of the front diff.

[Jrgunn5150]

But wouldn't it wear down shit more if it's constantly engaged?

Millions of TJ's, ZJ's, XJ's, and JK's say no.

[KingBird]

The problem I've seen was an extremely worn intermediate shaft after 140k in our Bravada. I replaced the sleeve and shaft and all is good.