In A Junkyard Far, Far Away | January 10, 2020
Last we saw this project I had just exorcised from the front of the Cherokee all the rusty bits and pieces that make up the front suspension. And the front axle. The underwhelming Dana 30 in its lesser manifestation…the low pinion version.
The thinking behind pulling the whole axle wasn’t simply “why not,” but came from the intention to scrap the original low pinion Dana 30 in its entirety for something else…another equally underwhelming Dana 30, only in its stronger high pinion iteration (but still crap according to the Jeep people with their massive rubber fetishes).
In a scientific nutshell…the high pinion axle is rumored to be 40% stronger than its low pinion twin, and that owing to the direction the gears are cut. On a high pinion, the pinion gear bites into the ring gear, while in the LP it rotates away from it causing weakness under stress. The HP version also provides better driveline angles…blah, blah, blah. It’s totes better cUZ SciEncE!!!
And that’s why I was looking for one to show up under a '97-'99 Cherokee at my local pick-n-pull yard.
Believe it or not it took a really long time for a decent donor to show up. I’d looked at probably no less than ten or twenty XJs over the past four or five years, waiting for a good condition donor to show up. Either a front end collision bent it all to hell, or it’d be a two-wheel drive version, or a four-cylinder-engined XJ with the wrong gear ratio, or some a-hole had already taken it…needless to say, it took a while. Especially with the lack of motivation this project has suffered under. There’s been plenty of other stuff going on between the Montero and the MPV.
But on this January morning…it was like a late Christmas present just for me. Bingo!
And it came out quick and easy, unlike how I remember fighting, sawing, hammering, cursing, and bleeding to get out the original back home.
With this key ingredient finally secured my Jeep Cherokee was officially back underway as a project. And of course, the all-competent MPV would serve as the courier to deliver the parts and the news to those waiting back home.
