A little progress
22. Sep 2013 at 17:36  

I finally feel like this project is going somewhere.
On the weekend, I finished assembling the rear axle, after replacing every seal and gasket, along with the carrier and shaft bearings.  The brakes have a lot of new parts, too--everything that comes in the overhaul kit from Walcks.

Only one part got wrecked in the process--the pinion seal, which is, of course, the very last thing I was installing.  I put it in backwards.    Damaged it trying to get it in, and there was no way it was coming out intact either.  Took me a few minutes to figure out what I had done wrong.  Oh well, I just used the one I had bought for the front.  I've got more things to order before I can finish the front anyway.

Been working on the rear differential:  getting the pinion bearing preload right, and getting the backlash on the ring gear within spec.  I need to do a contact pattern test, and then thoroughly clean out everything with kerosene before closing the cover on it.

But first, I built a differential spreader, since it's a pain in the butt to do differential work without one.  (It involves pounding on bearing  cups with a dead blow hammer...)

For scale, the big tubes (2" heavy wall square tubing) are 16" long.  The threaded rod is 3/4".

And here it is, in use:

Building brakes

Brakes.  Four units, with new pads, cylinders, springs, and anchor pins (with nuts and lock washers).  I still can't figure out why the overhaul kit included the anchor pins but not the cams, which go on the anchor pins.  (And they're brass--if you were selecting which parts to put into an overhaul kit, wouldn't you pick the soft parts?)  Original parts are the backer plates, eccentrics (and their nuts and lock washers--again, why include the anchor pins in the kit and not the eccentrics?), and the anchor pin plates.

The moving parts (i.e., those bits around the anchor pins) are greased with brake lube.  The nuts (on the anchor pins and eccentrics) have anti-seize on them.

But this marks the first time in this process that I've actually assembled something!  Yay! Axles come next...

Parts finally arrived!