Sempertoy
Explorer
I had a fun day yesterday doing my first axle rebuild. It was actually much more simple than I was expecting, however it was just as messy as everyone says.
A friend of mine came over and together we tackled the project in a out 5 1/2 hours, so 11 man hours. What made it nice was having access to a lift and a completely stocked tool room. The only thing we supplied was the axle seal installer.
We were both on a tight schedule and this was the only weekend that worked for both of us before a big wheeling trip next Saturday.
I used the kit from cruiseroutfitters, all the parts fit perfect and the bearing look to be OEM quality.
While I had the front apart I pulled the diff out so I could replace the gasket (bad leak) much to my surprise I found that I had two broken teeth on my ring gear... I thought back to when I could have broken them and I'm sure it was my trip to big bear playing around on John Bull or dishpan springs.
I'm sad about the broken teeth, but not overly concerned. If I have learned one thing about 80's it's that they are very over engineered. I'll run this until I can find a cheap replacement or maybe until I re gear.
One tip I have after reading about axle rebuilds, a lot of people say you don't have to disconnect the tie rod. I would save the time fighting it and do it from the beginning. We didn't disconnect it in the beginning and ended up doing it during reassembly. Other than that, it's a straight forward job with the FSM. I feel certain that I could tackle it myself next time.
A friend of mine came over and together we tackled the project in a out 5 1/2 hours, so 11 man hours. What made it nice was having access to a lift and a completely stocked tool room. The only thing we supplied was the axle seal installer.
We were both on a tight schedule and this was the only weekend that worked for both of us before a big wheeling trip next Saturday.
I used the kit from cruiseroutfitters, all the parts fit perfect and the bearing look to be OEM quality.
While I had the front apart I pulled the diff out so I could replace the gasket (bad leak) much to my surprise I found that I had two broken teeth on my ring gear... I thought back to when I could have broken them and I'm sure it was my trip to big bear playing around on John Bull or dishpan springs.
I'm sad about the broken teeth, but not overly concerned. If I have learned one thing about 80's it's that they are very over engineered. I'll run this until I can find a cheap replacement or maybe until I re gear.
One tip I have after reading about axle rebuilds, a lot of people say you don't have to disconnect the tie rod. I would save the time fighting it and do it from the beginning. We didn't disconnect it in the beginning and ended up doing it during reassembly. Other than that, it's a straight forward job with the FSM. I feel certain that I could tackle it myself next time.