Is your “Service Axle Locker” light lit on your dash? Do you have pesky rear end noise? Prematurely failing rear wheel bearings? Or worst of all, has your rear axle failed entirely? Fooling your dash light with a plug in module is a great bandaid, but how about fixing the cause of the issue, not just one of the symptoms?

Finally, a solution to the problematic pinion bearing on JL/JLU Wrangler with the M200/Dana 35 rear axle!

The factory ACBB (angular contact ball bearing) retails for $121, our upgrade is better… and less expensive!

Replaces the problematic ACBB outer pinion bearing on the rear Advantek M200 rear axle with a tried and true tapered roller bearing. The new ball bearing style are prone to premature failure, even on factory non-modified Jeeps. By going back to the rock solid tapered roller bearing, your rear axle will see increased reliability, increased load capability, and less worry!

This kit includes:

• Tapered roller bearing and race pair (Timken or Koyo)
• Trail Forged custom specification 304 Stainless Steel shim
• Optional – if you are installing this upgrade without regearing or using a master install kit, we can supply the necessary crush sleeve and pinion seal as well!

The best part, this upgrade can not only be done on new gear installs, but also your existing set up! When done on rigs not getting a rear end rebuild, it is necessary to remove the carrier to reset pinion bearing preload, but a full gear setup is not required. The crush sleeve should be replaced.

The benefits:

• Significantly greater service life
• Works with factory and aftermarket yokes
• Greater load bearing capacity
• Less rear axle noise
• Much stronger/more able to take punishment from off-roading

Install Notes:

• Shim is installed outside of the bearing between it and the yoke. Shim must be as centered as possible, we suggest using a very light coat of tacky grease to stick the shim to the bearing when installing to keep in place
• Use modified pinion preload spec: 14-26 inch-lbs

Fitment Notes:

• This DOES NOT fit the Dana 44 Advantek M220 rear axle, only the Dana 35 M200. Click HERE for the M220 kit
• Only requires (1) kit per rear axle, replacing the outer bearing and race

ACBB (Angular Contact Ball Bearing) vs Tapered Roller Bearing

The new ACBB bearings being used have VERY small contact patches and have proven to no be able to handle the increased load. Meanwhile the tapered roller bearings in our upgrade kit have a MASSIVE increase in load bearing surface area and are much more capable of handling the stresses of off-roading and larger tires.

The Tech:

Let’s talk about WHY the JL/JT rear axle is such a problem, and why our industry-first solution is THE permanent fix for the biggest weak leak on the rear axle of your Wrangler or Gladiator.

In an effort to meet federal fuel economy standards, the new Jeep models had to meet certain minimum fuel economy standards (and you totally bought your jeep because it’s fuel efficient… right?). In order to gain some tiny fraction of one MPG on a computer run simulation, Jeep instituted about a half a dozen changes, each responsibly for a theoretical maybe 0.01-0.1 MPG. One of these changes was in the rear axle, specifically, the outer pinion bearing, the one closest to your rear driveshaft. They ditched the 100+ year time tested tapered roller bearing, and instead used a plastic-race ACBB dual row ball bearing. And these bearings are a massive weak point. They fail prematurely, they are hyper sensitive to side loads (like hitting your driveshaft on an obstacle), and when they fail, they dump fine metallic particles and shavings into your rear axle, where it harms every single thing, from bearings, to gears, to even that pesky little locker position sensor responsible for your dash light. Sure, putting a “dummy module” in there can turn the light off, but it doesn’t actually fix the problem, and your rear axle will remain a ticking time bomb until the core problem is fixed. 

Let’s talk about those dummy modules… isn’t it weird that over 90% of all “service axle locker” lights are from the rear axle? And when the rear is opened up, the magnetic locker position sensor is covered in fine metallic fur, rendering it inoperable? Most of the time the amount of metal fines in the rear axle are way beyond an acceptable amount, and the source is almost always that troublesome ACBB bearing. So rather than fool your factory safety equipment, how about we fix the cause of the problem, the source of all that metal that is eating your bearings and gears, and causing noise and wobbly wheel bearings, and dash lights?

At Trail Forged, we are all about engineering-backed, long term solutions to ensure you will have trouble free performance from your rig for years to come… so when we identified the actual cause of this common problem with JL and JT models, we struck out to find THE solution. It took over 100 hours of digging through engineering documents, doing load calculations, looking through bearing catalogs, designing fitment, installing and testing product, until we came up with our current solution, the FIRST to market and still the gold standard solution to all these pesky rear axle problems. And now, several years later, thousands of professional shops around the world are using our bearing upgrade kit in regear and repair jobs, and companies are now poorly attempting to knock off our design and sell their own version. Don’t fall for these poor imitations, get the best from the originator of this bearing upgrade kit!