Suggestions for when that Jeep Wrangler comes back

[Gareth Randall]

Hi Eric,

Great to see the new Wrangler video. Since it seems like it may well be coming back, I’d like to make two suggestions – please show the replacement of the upper control arms, and also demonstrate how to put the spider gears back if they accidentally fall out of the differential while you’ve got the axle shafts out.

I did actually ask for a spider gears video about a year ago, and you said that it would be something you could do when you next had a vehicle with an appropriate type of diff in the shop 🙂

As for the upper control arms, they are a particular pain in the butt for two reasons. Firstly the front arms only contain bushings at the body end, the bushings at the axle end are part of the axle itself and require a special tool (or ingenuity with generic tools) to replace. Secondly, finagling the axle around so that the bushings align with the bolt holes in the axle end of the arms can be all kinds of fun, especially if you’re working alone. A lot of DIYers with Jeeps will actually let shops do the upper control arms for those two reasons.

Thanks for considering these!

Topic

[EricTheCarGuy]

Given there weren’t any issues with the control arms, I don’t think I’ll be making that video anytime soon. There also wasn’t anything wrong with the spider gears. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it is what I like to go by.

That said, I will be doing differential videos when I work on the Fairmont. Perhaps I can cover spider gears then.

Thanks for the suggestions.

[Author]

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