Another Project

[kizer]

Welp did some more playing since the wife decided to put up Halloween stuff everywhere. My boy was taking an afternoon nap so I just said time to paint and grind some more.


Dumped the gear old and yes its brown. Not the goldish brown that I'm used to seeing with gear oil, but like a dirty brown and didn't stink like gear oil normally does. It was really weird. I opened up a can of brake cleaner and just went a little overboard with it because I wanted to make sure whatever was in the diff came out.



I also noticed there was no RTV, but found what looks like a gasket of some sort. It had the same indention on the backside like it was meant for the cover. Man it was really nice not having to scrape any RTV off. I just took a wire brush to the surface of the cover and the housing and made sure the gasket was clean of any debris.

Did they come with rubber gaskets from the factory? My Jeep didn't so I use RTV, but I know they make rubber gaskets. I'm just trying to guage the last time the rear was serviced.



Made a little painting station since it was all paint brush on I just used some wire to hang from a piece of PVC piping and went to town.



I think the first coat turned out pretty good. It could of been a little better, but I started to loose my patience using the steel brush.



Hit the axle with some degreaser, rinsed it off and used the etching solution that POR15 recommends. I plan on painting it this evening so I don't have to hit it again with the wire wheel. Man there are way to many little hiding spots for grease and 40year old clumps of debris to live in.

I pulled the fill plug and the rear cover so I can make sure I don't POR15 them on since it would be a little bit of a pain in the butt to get them off once they are painted on.

Control arms are painted as well as the rear track bar with new bushings. I just have to hit the diff and the suspension parts one more time with a second coat and then hit everything with the top coat of chasis black because the bottom coat doesn't like the UV rays.

[bluemeanietsi]

Old school gear oil was made of whale blubber, it's likely that's original oil and original gasket.  I don't see signs of water/metal in it so I think you'll be ok.

Does the oil have a really bad smell to it?

[kizer]

Actually it had no real smell to it all. Gear oil normally stinks really bad when its burnt. As well 80/90 that I normally use is kinda thick like snot and this was almost watery, almost like choclate milk thickness. I looked at all the surfaces and even rotated the spider gears around and didn't see any chipped teeth or odd colors to indicate any heating or damaging. I was told that 12bolts are pretty strong rear ends and for my intended purposes I shouldn't have any issues.

Yeah I thought I got it for a pretty good deal. It needs some work, but hey its a project truck and not my daily driver so I'm learning things and well cutting fingers and getting dirt everywhere.

Did do a little more last night. Got the majority of the axle painted up. I haven't done the ends as of yet. I wasn't in the mood to pull the tires off and pull the axles or brake cylinders. As well I didn't want to paint them on so I could never remove them either. I do plan on addressing the rear brakes soon so I'll tackle that when I get close.

Man those brake lines look really nasty. I guess I should address those as well when I address the rear brakes.







As for the drive shaft I haven't decided if I should remove all the surface rust and give it a coat of silver or something of the like or ignore it for a while. Either way its going to stand out like a sore thumb and drive me a little batty.

[Barcrest]

You need to clean up the drive shaft. At least get the surface rust off and see what it looks like then. Of course easy for me to say i'm not doing it.

[kizer]

Hahaha, no kidding man. Maybe I'll put the truck on jack stands, start the engine and let the axle slowly rotate and hit it with a wire brush. I guess if the truck fell off the jack stands I'd never do that again. I'd probably never walk again either.

[bluemeanietsi]

Get yourself a "Gimp"

It's a 3" heavy wire brush that mounts in an angle grinder.  It'll take the rust of that in no time.  WEAR A MASK the gimp is quite good at its job.

[Barcrest]

Get yourself a "Gimp"

It's a 3" heavy wire brush that mounts in an angle grinder.  It'll take the rust of that in no time.  WEAR A MASK the gimp is quite good at its job.

So he also needs to buy a gimp mask... 

[kizer]

I was trying to do a search for "gimp" and holly crap it comes up with more things than I should post here in an open forum. hahaha

[bluemeanietsi]

I call it the gimp because it shakes the crap out of you when you use it.

[kizer]

Oh yeah I have one of those. It makes nice swirly marks in the metal.

[bluemeanietsi]

Well you said you were going to paint it right?

[kizer]

Yeah. I was just talking smack.

I'm not sure if I want to POR15 it or just hit it with some spray paint. POR15 would last well longer, but I don't want to glue the weights on if it ever needs rebalanced.

[kizer]

Welp I decided to say screw it and hit the shaft with a wide piece of what appears to be thin sand paper rolled around the shaft. The surface rust was well very easy to remove and it came off pretty clean. I hit it a few times and used some degreaser in between each scrub just to make sure it was coming out clean. Then I used some acid etch and painted it. As well I top coated the entire frame with the UV protectant for POR15. Let it sit for a few days and started putting things together.

I got wild and painted the coils and shocks with some silver Hammerite paint. They are to be replaced with Bags and new shocks anyways, but thought it would be fun to see some color back there.





There are some shinny spots that I need to touch up which is the base coat of the POR15 showing through. The top coat is a real flat looking paint that I really like. It almost reminds me of flat black Rustoleum which I've always liked. Of course I have to pick up some Ubolts to mount the lower shock mounts.

Im going to write off the rear for now and address the following when I can because the garage is getting cold and I don't have heat to paint:
Rear brake lines and hoses
Fill the rear end
Rear brakes
Axle ends which unless Im wrong is also the backing plate for the brakes
Repair/replace the bed wiring
Replace Ujoints and paint touch up shaft and rear end

[kizer]

I call this the off the boards back on all 4's post.

UPS last told me that my U-bolts would be here tomorrow, but since they arrived I just had to install them so I could push the truck back since its hogging part of my wife's parking spot in the garage.


Is it just me or do they appear to be freaking HUGE? I couldn't believe how big they where when I took them out of the box. I thought damn where they really this big when I cut the last ones off? Yep it appears so.

As well I figured I might as well get the rear cover back on since I need to fill it up full of lube soon and my excuse earlier was that the pinion angle is way off since there is nothing to set the pinion. I went a little clean happy and well hit all of the cover bolts with a wire wheel mounted on my grinder.


Before


After

I did notice something that I thought was a bit odd. When you use the U-bolts they run over the axle, through the control arm and connect to the lower shock mount like shown in the below picture.



However the U-bolts came with some rather thick fender type washers that are used on the bottom of the lower shock mount. They simply do not fit so I had to clearance them a little bit with the grinder. I just took off some of the material on one side so it would fit inside the lower shock mount.



While I was at it I installed a new vent for the axle. The old one was covered with a lot of dried up grease or at least I think it was.



The pictures/flash really point out things I seem to need to address in the future. You know the red/rust color things that aren't black. Some day I sware. hahahaha

Next I just need to tighten everything down and fill up the rear with some gear lube. What happens after that I'm not really sure. I know I need to push the frame back under the bed so the wife can have back some of her parking area since she nearly hits the truck every time she pulls in. I guess I'll throw on some more bolts on the bed while I look for more things to replace. The budget is getting really slim and I might have to just do little things that do not require funds for a while.

Now that I look at the photos I should pull off the other bolts and give them the wire brush treatment. Just have to see what I can steel brush and what I can't so they don't rust. :lol:

[Barcrest]

Looking awsome dude, a lot of work gone into that.