A brief rundown of my story.

I purchased my first "work on" Jeep about a year ago. It is a 1994 Jeep Sahara and I currently have NO idea where the D35 is but the D30 is still up front (getting replaced).

I heard from a friend that a good swap in for this Jeep was a Dana 44 axle out of a 1987-89 XJ Cherokee (regular boxy style). After 4 months of looking I finally found one   2 hours and 90 dollars later, It was mine.

I brought it home and before my buddy took it to do any welding on it, he wanted me to grind off the old hardware and strip the axle tubes. So I did just that. There was quite a bit of rust under the perches though, which was my LAST objective to tackle.

I grinded them down to the axle tube and there was still some rust in two or three of the sections where the perches remained. Wire Wheel, rust remover, sanding disk, nothing could touch it. I began grinding for about 2-3 hours straight being as precise as I could. But even after taking as much time as I could, I still left several of "dimples" in the axle tube. each one is right where the perches were (on both sides - 2 maybe 3 of them). All of them are MAYBE 1/16th inch - 1/10th inch deep and about the size of a quarter or silver dollar. My friend said they weren't even really deep enough to fill with weld.

My issue is that I am worried about safety (nieces and nephews) but don't know SQUAT about Jeeps or engineering there of. I purchased a piece of DOM tubing that was 3.25" ID and .250" wall. By the time I got done cutting it into 4 different sections, they all appeared to fit perfectly over where these dimples are. Do I even need to be worried about paying for the extra weld for my friend to place the DOM tubing over these dimples? The dimples are pretty much exactlly where the U-bolts are going to go on the top of the axle and the perches are going to be welded directly beneath them on the bottom of the axle (regular SUA).

Basically if I want to look at one of these "dimples" I have to rotate it, put a piece of black paper under it and look at with one eye to even see the slight indentation. It's something I can barely pick up if I run my thumb down the axle. I just feel a small dip and then it comes right back out. I couldn't grab it with my fingernail if I tried.

If I take a piece of paper and hold it flush over one of these areas where I left maybe a 1.5-2 inch long dimple that is 1 inch wide, I can fit PROBABLY the width of an SD card down where I can see the light. Other then that, it seems like a really flush job was done on the rest of the mounting parts except for the perches and the rust.

JP has been a great read and very informative by the way. Since I have a lot of time I have been able to go through a lot of back issues and wait around for good prices stuff to pop up.

But any help with this axle issue would be great.  

Use a straight edge and lay it across the areas you're concerned with. Measure the "daylight" with a feeler gauge to determine the depth.

Sounds like the dimples were created more from the weld cleanup for the perch removal than the rust it self. In adition, trying to remove the rust by grinding may have made them worse.

Sand blasting is a better rust removal method. Then there is just clean pits remaining and not dimples.

If you need to weld in the area, the metal must be clean for a strong weld. If not welding, use a rust killing chemical and paint it.

But, let us no your measurement.  

If I lay a straight edge across the dimple, like use a T-Square (?) or regular ruler, from what I can see - it is MAYBE a 16th of an inch deep in the center and gets shallower as it goes out.

If I would have used a sand blaster and that was able to get all the rust out, it still would have been as deep. The only reason that I say that is because I grinded as far as I could till there was just some "pitted" area of rust left with my angel grinder. Then I nearly burnt out my dremmel the rest of the way to use a small metal grinding cone to get these pitted areas. I was as precise as I could be.


The axles are completely clean. They were sanded all the way down to bare metal around the entire axle. The only place where these "dimples" are is where the rust was just to deep from the perches.  

I don't know how to post pictures or I would. Is it just some sort of "photobucket" thing? That might make it easier.

I JUST GOT DONE measuring. I laid a ruler across the dimple from side to side. It is MAYBE 1.5 inches wide, but even rotating the ruler around the axle, it is MAYBE a 16th of an inch deep, MAYBE a little more (and I mean a hair) at the deepest parts of any of the dimples. It NEVER gets anywhere near an 1/8th of an inch