Just dropped $1375 on parts...

A good chunk of that is new brakes (drums, pads, springs, wheel cylinders, master cylinder, and some of the hoses--the flexible parts of the lines).  The rest is bearings, seals, and gaskets.  All for the axles.  (Other parts come later.)

Next comes reassembling the axles.  A bit more cleaning is needed first and I think I might need to do some more painting (on visible areas on the hubs, at least).  And then I need to get springs and shackles before I can get the axles onto the frame.  Oh, and new tires.  And I have to sandblast and paint the wheels.  This is not exactly a fast process!

Okay, So I have selected for replacement the following:

From the 41 Rear:
1 shaft cone
1 shaft cup
1 carrier cone
2 carrier cups

From the 25 front:
2 carrier cones
2 carrier cups
2 pinion cones
2 pinion cups
4 king pin cones
2 king pin cups (the upper one from each side)

The pictures below show parts of all of these:
41 Carrier Cone


41 Carrier Cup(s)


41 Shaft Cone

41 Shaft Cup


25 King Pin Cone(s)




25 King Pin Cup(s)



25 Pinion Cup


25 Pinion Cone(s)



25 Carrier Cone


25 Carrier Cup(s)



The ones I haven't chosen to replace all look good, and feel smooth.  I haven't been able to look at the inner races, though.

A (pre-paint) shot of the weld on the knuckle:

I found it very interesting to look at the weld on the brake hose holder (and the ones on the spring mount a few inches out of the shot) and compare them to the one holding the knuckle onto the axle tube.  The former are clearly done by hand, while the latter really doesn't look like it.  But I don't think they had computerized welding in 1949...

Here are the painted 25/41.  Just the POR-15 coat is on now--I'll paint over that with a matte paint tomorrow.  (POR-15 has to be painted over unless it's somewhere that will not see any light.  I'm painting over everything, regardless.)

The carrier saddles and differential cover bolts are all in place because the bolt holes go out the back side, and I didn't want paint getting into those holes.

Another thing to note is that the pinions have been removed.  That was both to make it easier to clean the axles, and because I'm going to be replacing the bearings anyway.  The Kaiser-Willys service manual says to remove the pinion by hammering on it with a brass punch.  Tried that--didn't have much luck.  Moses Ludel's book says to use an air hammer.  Don't have one of those, and I doubt the neighbours would appreciate it if I did!  What I did instead was to use my press.  Worked like a charm--didn't even need much force.  Obviously that can only be done with an axle that's been removed from the vehicle, but mine were...

And here are the four knuckles (since I haven't decided which two I'm using yet), and the four 9" backing plates.  Also the two covers.  The cover for the 25 isn't the one that was on the Jeep when I got it, but it came in the spare parts collection that came with the Jeep.  The one on the Jeep was chrome, but since the chrome plating was half gone, I decided to revert to the original one with a fresh coat of paint.

For curiosity and record keeping, here are some casting (and other) numbers off various parts.  I'm only including the 25 and 41 axles, since they're the original ones, and are being reused.

 The 41 axle still has its ratio tag (43/8=5.375).  (The 25 did, too, shown below.  The 27 and 44 did not.)  Also in this picture is a code 9-65.  I don't know what it means.  The 41 is also visible.

 Also on the 41:

This one is the 25.  The code at the bottom is totally illegible.

 Here's the ratio tag on the 25:

 

The 9" brake backing plates (41/25, L&R) all had the same number on them:

 

 This is on the 25:  It's the only one of the four axles that had numbers on the side of the differential away from the cover.  The 25 is clear; I don't know what the 48 means.

I can't see any date stampings on the axles where http://www.cj3a.info/tech/datecode.html says they should be.  There is a "6" stamped on one of the "donuts" referred to in that page, but it's in a bigger font.

I've been remiss in keeping this up to date, but really not much has happened.  I've sandblasted the axle tubes, brake backing plates and knuckles, and then painted them.  I'm going to put some details in multiple posts just to keep things straight.

Unfortunately, I discovered the 44/27 axles didn't both have 11" brakes.  The 44 had 11", while the 27 had 10" brakes.  It really doesn't seem like a great idea to have the more powerful brakes on the rear, but that's what they had.  One of the 11" backing plates had also been repaired--fairly well, mind you.

I think, all things considered, that I'm going to stick with the 9" brakes that the CJ-3A came with.  I really don't want different brakes front and rear.

I haven't made up my mind on the knuckles yet.  I was planning on using the knuckles off the 27, since one of the tie rod connections on the 25's knuckles was a bit worn.  But other than that wear, the knuckles from the 25 are in better shape.  Funny, though:  if I decide to keep the knuckles from the 25, then the effort I've spend disassembling and cleaning the 44/27 pair of axles will be entirely for naught, as it had been for the brake backing plates and knuckles...

Sandblasted brake backing plates and knuckles are shown in the picture below.  You can see the three different sizes of plates (2 each of 10" and 11", and 4 of the 9").

 And here are the axles tubes (25 and 41).  The rust is from dew.  I sandblasted at the cabin, and we spent the night there.  By morning, there was rust...  But it was just minor surface rust and cleaned off easily.