Posted by Nick [99.100.212.49] on Sunday, February 16, 2014 at 00:25:59 :
Got at it early, as I was jazzed to come home and find the pinion seal kits from Charles Talbert.
Started by removing the driveshaft from the rear third member, then drilled a hole in the old seal. Cranked a bolt in, and it popped right out! NICE, gonna be a good day. Put the sleeve on the yoke, took the one off the shaft and installed the sleeved one. Workin good.
Tires off, axle shafts out. Crap, one axle shaft stud is stripped. Deal with that later. Drums off, brake shoes off, brake cylinders off. The passenger side outer oil seal has been leaking. Theres oil in the hub and its dissolved the bearing grease. Luckily I have a few spare new oil seals. Ill put the new one in and hopefully it won't do it again. Re pack all the bearings and reinstall. Re install in same order on centered axle.
Now I go to the axle. Disconnect the brake lines, and shocks. Put a jack under the axle, start takin the u bolt nuts off. No problems. Take em all off and drop the axle down and roll it out on the jack.
Take the nuts off the third member. The one stripped stud into the case gives me a little problem, but I just put a little side pressure on it and the nut came off.
Put the centered axle on the jack, roll it under the truck and raise it up, get it in position and bolt it up. Pull the third member from the offset axle, put it on the jack and roll it under and raise it up. Get it slid into place and a few nuts to hold it.
Go back to the stripped axle stud, can't get it out for the life of me. Finally get a stud remover that came with the tool set I bought 20 years ago. Try it, SNAPS THE STUD IN HALF. Crap.
So tomorrow Ill go get a length of brake line to do what was the short side, Ill cut what was the long side and use that.
Point is, I got the axle swapped out, third member swapped out, pinion seal replaced. Fix the brake lines tomorrow, see if I can talk Vaughn into comin over to help me bleed the brakes again, ;) and back on the road soon. Good start to a shift of vacation!
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