4WHEELOFFROAD.COM 4-WHEEL & OFF-ROADNOVEMBER 2019 251
To start our teardown of the Rockwell axles,
we removed the eight bolts retaining the
front axle’s drive flanges, and the rear axle-
shafts. The drive flanges easily slide off the axle
stub, and the rear axleshafts slide all the way
out of the axle like any full-floating rear axle.
The lock nut underneath the axleshafts and
front drivers require a 3-inch socket, but before
you can loosen the huge spindle nuts you have
to fold back the tab or two from the lockwasher
securing the outer nut. We used a medium-sized
chisel to do this. You can also use a chisel to
loosen the big nuts, but it damages them and we
would not recommend using a chisel to tighten
any spindle nut unless it’s an emergency. Use
the proper socket or driver, 3- inch in this case.2
With the spindle nuts off we used some lon-
ger^1 ⁄ 2 -inch bolts as handles to remove the
huge hub and drum. The drum may grab on the
shoes inside it, requiring a puller, but with a little
w iggling we were able to slide the drum over the
shoes on both the front and rear axle. Once you
have one drum off you can also see how to loos-en the cam adjusters that hold the brake shoes
against the drum. Turning the cam adjusters until
they click should loosen them enough to pull the
drum. If not , you’ll have to rig up a puller.3
The spindle nuts (12 of them per front wheel,
to be exact) can now be removed so you
can pull the massive spindle and then you can
remove the axle. We are going to pull ours all
the way out so we can remove the knuckles and
replace this steering Rockwell’s knuckle boots
and upgrade to Boyce chromoly axleshafts.
Our boots are in pretty good shape but do have
some dry rot and a small hole or two (more on
the boots later). You can see the huge stub shaft
and axle U-joint covered in grease. There are at
least three types of steering joints in Rockwell
steering axles. One with U-joints, and two with
CV joint s w ith either five or seven ball s. Suppos -
edly the U-joint style is the strongest, but we
are betting that the CV style joints are pretty
strong, too, unless they’re worn, dry, or dam-
aged by water intrusion and rust.4
It’s hard to see, but this is a small cut or crack in
our boot where grease could get out and water
or dirt could get in. Since these axles have been
sitting for a while we’d bet these cracks and splits
would open up w ide quick ly w ith use. Our pl an is to
add some Eaton lockers to the axles so replacing
the boots in the meantime is a no-brainer. Lucky
for us, Boyce Equipment sells brand-new boots
and boot clamps as a kit (PN BBCK250) with boots
in five color s (if you’re into that k ind of thing). We
got a set as part of the company’s more compre-
hensive 2.5 Ton Front Axle Tune-Up Kit (BTK250A,
$135) which includes boots, boot-clamps, seals,
and gaskets. Boyce also tossed in some new
spindle nuts and lock rings.5
To get the old boots off, we now pull the kingpins
so the outer knuckle can be removed from the
axles. These kingpins are larger and simpler than
smaller kingpins we’ve seen on early Jeep axles or
kingpin Dana 60s. There is a plate, and a kingpin
sleeve with a bronze bushing inside of it. Pull the
upper and lower plates and sleeves, loosen the outer
boot-clamp, and the outer knuckle will come off.1
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