Upgraded IWE

I wanted to put up poll to gauge the interest in an upgrade IWE.

What I am planning it to strip all the guts out of the IWE removing the spring/vacuum parts/and flimsy 1/4 gear ring with a solid gear ring. This would cause the front axle to be locked at the hubs and no more shearing/rounding the teeth off the IWE gear ring. There would be more noise, loss of fuel economy (figure 1 or 2 mpg), and wear on tires and drivetrain.. The benefits would be fully locked hubs, no slipping or clunking, no vacuum lines, vacuum solenoids, or check valves to fail..

I do not have final design of the uprade IWE yet, I am working on it. I do not know what long term effects to drivetrain or axles. This is just in the idea stages right now..

So, you're planning on having manual locking hubs, right?

Count me in.

Yukon Joe
Delta Force
Snoball500 Support Raptor

Here is what I found today. A cracked Iwe. So I think my right axle was engaged the whole trip.


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CoronaRaptor said:

So, you're planning on having manual locking hubs, right?

Click to expand...

if I can work it out, right now it is looking like the easiest method would be having the hubs fully locked to the axle shafts and use the transfer case to shift in and out of 4wd.. Less failure prone parts by removing all the vacuum lines and diapraghm that is subject to freezing degrading/tearing..

You can see after I cleaned all the old grease and particles of actuator gear off that the hub gear DOES take some damage from this issue. The actuator gear is made much softer so it takes the majority of damage. I'm assuming the gear was already slightly beveled so the actuator gear can click right on but it did have some burrs along the gear teeth.



Next we see the difference new to old and what happens to it when you hear the noise. The new gear has a flat edge to the hub side of the gear and you can clearly see that on the old one this has been ground to about a 30 degree angle shorting the gear to the point of nothing more to engage, so with the open diff taking the path of least resistance that half shaft will spin when in 4WD and the other, even though it works, will not do anything. No 4WD..



compared to new IWE



So what I am planning to do is gut a perfectly good IWE removing the guts (spring, vacuum lines, and 1/4" gear) and replacing it with a 1" billet gear to take the place of the vacuum componets. This will lock the hub to the axle not allowing slippage and wearing of teeth of the IWE or axle..

Noticed the wear on the right side iwe when I took it out. You are correct the iwe wears way faster than the axle. Should work fine to replace the guts with a billet gear or spacer. May not notice too much change in mileage.


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---------- Post added at 08:42 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:38 PM ----------

Years ago when we had manual locking hubs on almost every make,there was a spring that held the gear in place. Similar to what we have now. If you added more horsepower than the setup could take the spring would collapse and you would lose 4x4. I think it was mile marker who made a stronger spring that would overcome this problem.


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Here is a dissected new IWE (I don't want anyone to say i never make sacrifices for FRF)

View attachment 15771
Iwe assembly

View attachment 15772
5/16th iwe gear that is supposed to hold the power of the Raptor

View attachment 15773
This is the spring that is supposed to hold the IWE gear to the hub

View attachment 15774
Inside the IWE assembly, this is the vacuum port that gets contamination and causes IWE gear teeth to wear down

View attachment 15775
The IWE gear only travels 1/4 inch to engage and disengage 4wd. If you add 1/2 internal splined gear it would effectively lock hub and axle together...

Hope this make a little more sense, now..

-Greg (aka squatting dog)

Oh the humanity. Sacrificing a new gear. My dealer had 3 in stock. Said they sell a lot of them. Paid $102.00 for mine. If you want my old one I can send it too you.


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I have two shredded IWE of my own...

Thinking about the spacer idea, would work.. The only issue I see is that one solid piece with full depth teeth would allow full contact to the hub and axle.. This would eliminate any chance of slipping and spread power across the full 1/2" verses just 1/4" of teeth.

-Greg (aka squatting dog)

Yea I am sure it would. Keep us updated. Jack


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