Cleanin' Up an Axle

[Mike]

Ok so this is what i have. It has better gearing and its going under my XJ , so i figured id clean it up a bit, and paint it up and make it look nice before i swap it in.

I took a wire brush to it today, but it took me sooo long and i made very little progress.

Whats the best way to get all the dirt/grease/grim/rust off this thing, so i can prime and paint it.

i would like to end up with something like this






Not a d44 but you get what I mean. A nice clean looking painted axle and not a rusty crappy looking thing like i have now.

[YeaItsCold]

steam cleaners are you're friend..

[HeavyMetal]

perhaps a good power washer/sand blaster. Simple green and brake cleaner

[KtmRacer419]

brakleen to get the chunks and oil/grease off.

then foamy engine brite to get the rest of the crap off

then paint thinner.

then some cheap spray paint

at least thats what i do

[Jeep Creep]

do you have a front end to match the gearing of that rear? if not, you might want to look into that

[Wide-J]

I normally load up anthing big like that in my dads truck, spray degreaser on it, and bring it to the do-it-yourself car wash to remove any of the caked on crap. The high pressure is key along with a good engine degreaser. If you have any rust, scale or anything that needs to come off that is not dirt, I would recommend using an die grinder with a cookie (or patty some people call them). Not those little discs that are flat and like 2" big, but the ones that are like 4" x 1/2" thick. If you go into any autobody supply shop, they will have them. The are around far superior to any wire wheel you could use. Thats all I used to use when working in the body shop. Here is a pic of one. Make sure you get the one that uses a smaller arbor than the one in the pic. Normally, the discs have a hole only about 1/4" in the center for the arbor, but the pic attached will give you the idea www.kingdomabrasive.com/images/sd115.GIF

[Mike]

xjextreme said:

do you have a front end to match the gearing of that rear? if not, you might want to look into that

yep

[Dr. Thunder]

dude mike, its cleaning a rear end, its not rocket science, throw some engine degreaser on it and pressure wash it off, sand it down all nice and make sure that its warm wherever you paint it, oh yeah and maybe you should work on that clutch you burned out today first