I swap in Power Wagon axles
Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2012 4:25 pm
I have been saving for a while so I could upgrade my 2005 Ram 2500 with Power Wagon Axles. With them in now I figured I would start a thread for the swap.
It all Started with a 2500km trip to go pick up a set of used Diffs with 50,000 km (31,000mi) on them from a wreckers out side of Vancouver. When I got the Diffs home I gave them a check over inside and out, plus a coat of paint. I also recieved the stock pigtails with the Diffs so I checked to make sure that the lockers worked and which wires I was going to use to power them.
I also figured that if I was going to go this far I would also upgrade the steering linkage and add a steering box brace at the same time.
So then it was into the shop to get started.
After putting it on jack stands and pulling the front wheels I cleaned and sprayed every bolt I could find with penitrating lube.
I undid the abs wires and hung the calipers out of the way. I decided to remove the sway bar completely, because I run diesel coils on a hemi and don't need it.
The Draglink needed a little heat to pop out of the pitman arm, but the panhard bar came off fairly easy. The bottom bolt on the shocks was undone and the Coils were held up into the coil buckets with bungee cords.
In order to get the drive shaft disconected I had to lift the truck up to get enough angle at the bottom yoke ear to fit a ground down torx bit inside the ears into the screws.
Before I let the truck back down I put some jackstands by the transfercase crossmember and threw my stock tires on. I undid the trailing arms and roled out the diff (Remember to disconect the diff breather).
I then transfered the tires and breather over to the new diffs and rolled them into place and rehooked up all the arms, linkages, shocks, brakes, driveshaft and steering brace.
The next day I worked on the back.
It was again put up on jack stands, wheels removed and everything sprayed with lube.
The shocks, brakes, driveshaft and airbags were disconected. I cut the ubolts and ebrakes cables because I was going with new ones (DAM RUST).
Jackstands were put under the frame at the back of the cab and the diff was rolled out.
The new diff was rolled in and hooked up.
On day 3 it was time to wire them up. I built a switch panel that would fit were the cubby was on the dash.
I installed an extra fuse panel for the switches behind the panel on the side of the DS dash.
I ran wires from each diff to behind the battery. Because I am using the factory pigtails I hooked power to the YL/OR and ground to the YL/LG on the front. The rear got power to the YL/WT and ground to the YL/GY. When I tested the lockers I found that because I shared the power to the 2 switches that when both lockers are on it would pop a 10 amp fuse but not a 15 amp.
Now with that done I will be going from the 35's to 37's shortly and a snorkel is also in the future.
I hope this helps any one that plans to do this also.
It all Started with a 2500km trip to go pick up a set of used Diffs with 50,000 km (31,000mi) on them from a wreckers out side of Vancouver. When I got the Diffs home I gave them a check over inside and out, plus a coat of paint. I also recieved the stock pigtails with the Diffs so I checked to make sure that the lockers worked and which wires I was going to use to power them.
I also figured that if I was going to go this far I would also upgrade the steering linkage and add a steering box brace at the same time.
So then it was into the shop to get started.
After putting it on jack stands and pulling the front wheels I cleaned and sprayed every bolt I could find with penitrating lube.
I undid the abs wires and hung the calipers out of the way. I decided to remove the sway bar completely, because I run diesel coils on a hemi and don't need it.
The Draglink needed a little heat to pop out of the pitman arm, but the panhard bar came off fairly easy. The bottom bolt on the shocks was undone and the Coils were held up into the coil buckets with bungee cords.
In order to get the drive shaft disconected I had to lift the truck up to get enough angle at the bottom yoke ear to fit a ground down torx bit inside the ears into the screws.
Before I let the truck back down I put some jackstands by the transfercase crossmember and threw my stock tires on. I undid the trailing arms and roled out the diff (Remember to disconect the diff breather).
I then transfered the tires and breather over to the new diffs and rolled them into place and rehooked up all the arms, linkages, shocks, brakes, driveshaft and steering brace.
The next day I worked on the back.
It was again put up on jack stands, wheels removed and everything sprayed with lube.
The shocks, brakes, driveshaft and airbags were disconected. I cut the ubolts and ebrakes cables because I was going with new ones (DAM RUST).
Jackstands were put under the frame at the back of the cab and the diff was rolled out.
The new diff was rolled in and hooked up.
On day 3 it was time to wire them up. I built a switch panel that would fit were the cubby was on the dash.
I installed an extra fuse panel for the switches behind the panel on the side of the DS dash.
I ran wires from each diff to behind the battery. Because I am using the factory pigtails I hooked power to the YL/OR and ground to the YL/LG on the front. The rear got power to the YL/WT and ground to the YL/GY. When I tested the lockers I found that because I shared the power to the 2 switches that when both lockers are on it would pop a 10 amp fuse but not a 15 amp.
Now with that done I will be going from the 35's to 37's shortly and a snorkel is also in the future.
I hope this helps any one that plans to do this also.
