Ok, actual update time seeing as how I threatened to do it last night and didn’t have time.
So after Mike and I got the carrier installed last weekend, I cleaned all the old gasket material off and threw the cover back on to keep the crud out while I was cleaning up the housing.
Just for comparisons sake, here’s a “before” picture:
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I began by yanking out the old seals and axle bearings, the bearings were a real b*tch to get out. Even with the proper slide hammer 3 jaw puller, I still had to knock the cages and all the rollers out of them and heat up the housing ends before they’d come out.
Once I had the old parts out, I next cleaned up the axle stubs and flanges.
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Started doing some of the rust removal at night in the shop, but quickly abandoned that idea simply due to the mess it was making. I did get the passenger side front of the axle tube cleaned off enough to see the identification stamping.
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Here’s what the numbers correspond to from my FSM:
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The cover had some weird yellow paint on it for some reason, it wasn’t anywhere else but on the cover. I thought at first it might’ve been some road marking paint, but you’d expect to find that on everything, not just the cover.
Very strange.
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After I was able to get the old bearings out, the new Yukon Gear ones tapped right in after an overnight stay in the freezer. Had to buy a fancy Lisle bearing and seal installer to do it, but I feel it was money well spent.
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And of course the new seals went in next.
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By now I had decided that further rust removal would have to wait until the weekend so I could do it outside during the day, so I spent the next couple nights piddling around with other little stuff. I definitely DO NOT recommend trying this at home kids, but after a little careful time on the bench grinder wire wheel, I got the brake hard-lines cleaned up reasonably well and painted.
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The reason I don’t recommend doing this on the wire wheel is because it’s entirely too easy to get it caught up in the wheel. One split second and you’re in trouble. Thankfully this isn’t my first rodeo and I know where the danger areas are when doing stuff like this, so I was able to mitigate accordingly.
Somewhere in here I also disassembled the factory drum brakes and set aside all the hard pieces that don’t come in the spring kit for bead blasting at work. No pictures, because, well, dirty brake parts.
Nobody wants to see that shjt.
Back on the housing, I taped up the ends to keep the new parts clean in preparation for the upcoming rust removal.
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It was around this time that some of the new parts and materials started to trickle in. I’ve had one, yes ONE, wheel cylinder reinforcing bracket for a while now, but only one because that’s all I could get from Amazon. Apparently these are starting to be in demand because even Rock Auto has them on back order. On a long shot, one of our local suppliers was able to get a second one in for me from their warehouse.
Picked up a new pint can of POR15 in semi-gloss black while I was at it:
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If you’re not familiar with the reinforcing bracket, it’s an add-on to stabilize the crappy wheel cylinder design that just uses a flimsy clip to hold them in. Position the bracket over the wheel cylinder, mark, drill, and bolt it on. I’ll document this further once I get the new cylinders.
Also in the new parts I ordered, got a brand new set of backing plates from Dorman. These are actually really nice pieces, already powder coated black and come with new brake shoe spring kingpins and matching Stover nuts.
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And that almost brings us up to speed. You’ve already seen the de-rustification and the first coat of paint, the only other stuff I’ve done is to glass bead the brake hard parts (spreader bars, adjusters, parking brake brackets etc) and paint them at work. You’ll get to see them when the brakes go back together once the rest of my shipment arrives.
I’m currently still in the midst of painting the housing, it’s going to be a 4 step process at minimum:
1) Get as much as I can access covered in the first coat with it hanging “pinion down”.
2) Let the first coat dry, then follow it up with a second in the same state. (Already done now)
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3) Make sure the second coat is fully cured, then flip it upside down to get everything I couldn’t reach the first time. This part is crucial because I know some gear oil is going to leak out and run down on the freshly painted areas. I want the paint fully dried and cured so the oil doesn’t wreck it.
4) Apply the second coat to the underside.
After this the rest will be a cakewalk. Install the new backing plates, slam the axles home, and install the new C clips. Then the new cover and gasket can go on and the brake parts and drums.
Hoping to have it fully reassembled and ready to go back in the car by this upcoming weekend.
That’s all for now gents, thanks for hanging in there through this lengthy update.
D.
