Quick update on this one. I have been running Warn Full Floating rear axles, with lock in hubs, in the rear of this Scrambler for over 30,000 miles. Recently, I have noticed a little lash in the drive train, mainly noticeable while shifting gears, or slightly letting off the throttle while decelerating. Not terrible, but noticeable. My tan Scrambler, also running Warn Full Floating rear axles, with lock in hubs, in the rear, also developed this "lash". On my tan Scrambler, I swapped the lock in hubs out in favor of drive flanges. I decided to do the same with this Scrambler.
The people who made the drive flanges that I used in my tan Scrambler are no longer in business, so I purchased some 30 spline Dana 44 drive flanges, made by RCV, from BJ's Offroad:
The red dust covers match the paint LOL. A few quick install pictures, pretty straight forward, even thought the parts did not come with any installation instructions.
Rear hub, lock in hub components removed, excess grease wiped out, wheel bearing outer lock nut visible, no that that's important just yet:
Installing a drive slug. I wiped a thin coat of oil over the outer/inner splines to make installation a bit easier. The slugs come with two threaded holes. I installed bolts in the two holes, then gently tapped the drive slugs into place:
After installing the slugs, this metal part with the three threaded holes goes in. I also reinstalled the axle shaft retaining clip at this time.
The Warn lock in hubs use a big metal "C" clip to retain the inner hub part. RCV supplied these thingies:
To install the weird "thingies", kind of spread it out, start one end, then kind of push each "strip" around and in. Actually works pretty good, a bit easier to remove compared to the usual big snap "C" ring thingies:
Snap ring "thingy" installed fully in the hub groove:
I then oiled up the dust cover o-ring, installed it on the back of the dust cover:
Tightened down the three, pre-lock-tited cap screws, finished:
With the new drive flanges installed, the lash that was present with the rear lock in hubs is gone. After swapping out the rear full float axle kit lock in hubs on both my Scramblers that are so equipped, and a buddy with my old CJ-7 that had the Warn Full Float axle kit installed, I will make a recommendation: Unless you flat tow often, I would just start out with the drive flanges.
One "issue" - the stock center caps WILL NOT clear these drive flanges. There is very slight interference. I am going to clean out the gunk that has accumulated inside the center caps and see if they will fit. If they wont fit, then I will either lightly bore out the center caps, or space them out a hair, depending on how much interference there is. It was really close with the Warn internal mount hubs, but they cleared. The OD of the drive flange cap is just a hair too much.