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Old 05-19-2018, 03:56 PM   #68
John V
No more BMWs
 
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Join Date: Apr 2005
Carmudgeonly Ride: Ram, MS3, CX-5, RX-8
Location: Glenwood, MD
Posts: 14,753
I'm at a bit of a standstill until I make the bushings for the front and rear mounts of the diff. The Ronin guys expect you to use the factory Ford (rubber) front mount and a stock RX-8 rear mount, but I'm going to machine solid bushings for both. Anyway... the next thing that needs to happen is to assemble the custom axles. Obviously an RX-8 rear half-shaft is not going to work with the Ford diff, and an Explorer axle will not work with the RX-8 rear hubs. So the Ronin guys give you new custom chrome-moly axles which are designed to mate to the Explorer CV joint on the inside and the RX-8 CV joint on the outside. Because they're constant velocity joints rather than standard U-joints, the difference in design between the two won't cause any vibrations or binding.

Here are the axle shafts they send. Beefy!



Here's an Explorer half-shaft.



I only need this end of it... the inner CV joint.



To disassemble it, the band clamps holding the boots on get opened up. The boot slides up the shaft and the inner CV cup just comes off - the only thing holding it on is the boot which seems common with American cars. Once the cup is off, the CV joint is exposed. There is a small circlip holding this on, which comes off easily with a circlip pliers.



The circlip, which gets re-used.



A three-jaw puller extracts the CV from the Explorer axle shaft.



All the bits I need from the Explorer axles. The rest hits the bin.



The boots slide onto the axle shafts, then theb CV joints install using a 32mm socket and a deadblow, followed by the circlip. I'm going to stop here on the inboard side and move to the RX-8 axles.

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