I had a couple friends help me with gear install last Tuesday night. My one friend in particular used to work in a drivetrain shop and has tons of experience setting up gears.
Then I took Wednesday off of work so I could get the axle assembled and installed to relax and enjoy the rest of my Thanksgiving vacation. Nope. When I slid the right-side axle shaft in, it was painfully apparent that the housing was bent. We took the paint off the bottom edge and confirmed it with a steel table square. The bend was most prominent where the two vertical front/back supports get welded in directly underneath the UCA mount, which would be consistent with the amount of heat applied to that area. BUT my friends and I came up with a plan right then and there using stuff I had on hand:
I cut two slits in the truss, and slit all the side supports along it's length.
Using a 12-ton bottle jack and a length of chain wrapped from yoke to yoke, the axle went straight without much pressure. This confirmed to us that the axle was most definitely straight before we put the truss on. My friend who did the welding got a little impatient since I was there with him, but at the same time I was there because I didn't expect him to do all the work for me, and I knew it would be a 10-12 hour process of welding and cooling before we even got to the differential heating procedure. Unfortunately, that resulted in him welding the truss base up quickly, and jumping right to the diff without having bothered with the pre-heating of the cast before I even realized what had happened. Either way, I'm not at all pissed at him; this was a buddy-deal offer by him to do the welding for me since he's got a nicer welder and is a better welder than myself. He took it pretty hard that the axle warped, and offered to buy me a new truss and find a new housing, etc. I told him not to worry about it since I was pretty sure we could correct the existing one, plus it's not like this was a professional business transaction or anything.
I let it sit like that as I progressively went back and forth increasing pressure, checking on shaft alignment, and adding thicker washers and more tin for spacers.
This looks pretty d@mn close to me! I cut off the bits of washer that were sticking out and re-welded all the slits.
Fully assembled. My wife told me to stop being cheap and buy new u-joints and bearings. I picked up Spicer u-joints for the axle shafts, but got cheap hubs from Amazon. Those got topped off with new hub-nut kids from NAPA, and I did additional painting to clean up the scratches on Saturday.
Slapped it in on Saturday night, and took it out for the 20-minute initial break-in. The gears were a little noisy.
We then went out with some friends roughly 50 or so miles away to get Christmas trees. My wife drove the whole way and kept it at 55 mph. The trail was probably 4 or 5 miles, and then she did another 50 miles back home.
On Monday, first thing, I took it in for an alignment. Camber was within factory spec! Which means we got the axle straight! It's a driver! Turd officially highly polished! Gears also quieted right down after the break-in was done.
The truss and driveshaft don't appear to have any conflicts with the oil pan, and she did flex the axle out a little bit on the trail. I'll take a few pics the next time I get a chance. But keep in mind this also has a ~3.25" lift, and extended bump-stops.