Tri County Gear in Pomona,...
Tri County Gear in Pomona, California, completed the build of our Spider 9 axle housing using components from JT’s Parts & Accessories, Nitro Gear & Axle, Moser Engineering, and Teraflex. The performance 9-inch rear axle assembly will be installed under a prerunner/rock-crawler Jeep Cherokee.
Last month we provided an overview of the parts we'd use to build a Spidertrax Spider 9 rear axle assembly for our Jeep Cherokee prerunner/rock-crawler. With parts in hand we traveled to Tri County Gear in Pomona, California, to carry out the build.
The Spidertrax Spider 9 axle housing assembly is a purpose-built unit designed for extreme applications. It uses a standard Ford 9-inch drop out and accepts all Ford 9-inch parts and accessories. Since we'd use the Spider 9 assembly under a prerunner/rock-crawler-type rig we opted to go big with the internal components. Internals included a set of Moser 35-spline custom length axle shafts and Nitro Gear & Axle 5.13 ring and pinion gears and 35-spline steel spool, both from JT's Parts & Accessories. The gears and spool are installed in a Nitro nodular-iron race housing, which also features a heavy-duty 1350 pinion yoke and an aluminum Daytona pinion support, both by Nitro Gear & Axle.
Check out the following series of photos as we walk our way through the Tri County Gear assembly process to create a heavy-duty rear axle for our Cherokee prerunner/rock-crawler.
The Ford 9-inch drop-out third...
The Ford 9-inch drop-out third member was assembled by the master differential technicians at JT's Parts & Accessories/Justdiffer-entials.com. The nodular-iron race drop out housing offers increased lateral and vertical web gusseting for extra strength. The heavy-duty 1350 pinion yoke and aluminum Daytona pinion support further increase strength.
We finished the assembly of...
We finished the assembly of the Spider 9 using a set of 35-spline Moser Engineering axle shafts and a Teraflex disc brake kit. The Moser 'shafts use large 1/2-20 lug studs.
Jason Bunch, owner of Tri...
Jason Bunch, owner of Tri County Gear, began the axle build by determining the necessary axle tube length. We had ordered the Moser axle shafts to meet the desired wheel mounting surface (WMS) to wheel mounting surface dimension.
Here, Jason measures the depth...
Here, Jason measures the depth of the Nitro spool to determine how far the 'shafts will extend inward.
Once it was determined how...
Once it was determined how far the 'shafts would extend in to the spool...
...Jason marked the location...
...Jason marked the location on the 'shafts.
The axle shaft is shown fully...
The axle shaft is shown fully engaging the splines within the spool.
With the depth of the axle...
With the depth of the axle shafts within the spool determined both the left and right side axle shafts were inserted in the spool so WMS to WMS measurements could be taken. Using these figures we were able to determine the necessary axle tube lengths.
The Spidertrax Spider9 housing...
The Spidertrax Spider9 housing is 65 inches wide. We needed to shorten the tubes to create a 60.5 WMS to WMS dimension. The Tri County Gear crew took careful measurements to accurately determine the proper tube length. It's always best to measure twice (or more) and cut once.