Upgraded IWE gear replacement interest

We are making great progress in testing our upgraded IWE gears and will soon be looking to move into production phase. We all know the troubles of the IWE gear, so I'm not going into detail of that in this thread.

We are currently still in testing phase of our latest batch, and are happy with the results that we are seeing. Our next step is another small batch for additional testing and quality control that will be handed out to a few "pre-selected" testers for accumulative miles. After which, we will move to production. Current production time for any sized batch, varies between 6-12 weeks, so this will take some time.

Being as the the production of these gears are expensive, and the tooling and broach even more so, I need to gauge the interest of this product for our intitial production batch. That's where FRF comes in. Please vote on the pole. This will help us out tremendously.

This is just preliminary research for us. Once we get closer to production, we will open up pre-orders for the first batch that will have introductory pricing exclusive to FRF members. We do not have any official pricing at this time, as we are working hard to keep this as cost effective as possible. With that said, cost "should" be under $500 per set. In comparison, the OEM IWE assembly cost approx $110 each ($220/pair).

Thank you for your time!

-Joseph Haynes

Put these suckers in when you do my hood lights

However, I still have 2+ years of warranty for Ford to toss them in for free.

That brings up the question of, would you rather be stranded without 4wd for free (warranty), or pay out of pocket for reliability?

---------- Post added at 11:56 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:54 AM ----------

Note that these will obviously work will regular f150s as well as they use the same IWEs.

How's the installation?

HAYNES OFFROAD said:

That brings up the question of, would you rather be stranded without 4wd for free (warranty), or pay out of pocket for reliability?

---------- Post added at 11:56 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:54 AM ----------

Note that these will obviously work will regular f150s as well as they use the same IWEs.

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So then put these "test" units in while I'm down there next time!

Humvee21 said:

How's the installation?

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same as replacing regular IWE unit. You have to nearly remove the spindle from everything (tie-rods, uca, etc) to be able to remove the axle. Once the axle is out, 3 bolts hold the IWE unit onto the spindle. Pop out the old engagement gear, pop in the new, grease, and reassemble. Hour or so per side with proper tools.

I will have these available as just the gear to "swap" them out of your current housing, and also preassembled in a brand new IWE unit and greased up. We reccomend using a new IWE unit as the diaphram deteriorates over time and we use our own high quality grease that allows for free movement without sticking up like OEM.

Jimbo said:

So then put these "test" units in while I'm down there next time!

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I'm out of current units. Otherwise I would. Next test batch will be about 10 weeks out. Machining and heat treatments take time.

You should have at least taken one IWE out first I'm on my 4th set.

Jimbo said:

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If you knew how expensive these initial units were... You wouldn't make more than you needed either!! Haha

Here's a little run down of current costs for me so far...

Internal spline shaper cutter for tooling (good for small batches) $1350

Internal spline broach (for mass production) $3590

And that doesn't even include the cost for the actual product or materials!

---------- Post added at 12:42 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:40 PM ----------

Wilson said:

You should have at least taken one IWE out first I'm on my 4th set.

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I've gone through 2 OEM sets, and have gone through 6 different sets while testing differant materials. I'm at 15k miles, and maybe 2.5k in 4wd. Lol

Will be adding these as soon as they are available, as Im down in Baja a lot and would not want a problem on the trail.