And just FYI, I took the wheel bearings apart on the passenger side of the Road Ranger floating axle. While there were no leaks, and everything looked pretty good, my suspicion was it was all at the last minute of its life.
When I inspected the spindle (remember this was a salvaged axle), it looked like there was surface rust where the seal would sit. No doubt that’s what killed the other side last year.
I used the oscillating sander and a drill drum sander to remove the rust, I did it until I could not feel anything catch on my fingernail if I lightly scraped it along where the seal would sit. Then I wire brushed it and used the emery paper and checked it again.
The new seal has a double lip, and is spring loaded on the inner lip (inner to the bearing housing), and both lips ride in a different place than the old seal.
I used a new bearing I found for the inside, and went in my junk pile and cleaned up three of the outside bearings and used the best one. Driver side, like 8 1/2 hours. Lessons learned and no damage, passenger side, 45 minutes.
I checked the right front wheel bearing, all was good there, driver side was new from last year
When I got this piece of junk, the transmission crossmember bushings were completely gone. No new crossmember was available. I had a 93 donors truck, rubber bushings were bad, but it wasn’t worn out and banged up like the one that came with the truck. I got some big rubber bushings and basically fabricated my own assembly a year ago, maybe two, and there was nothing wrong with that when I pulled it down today.
Here’s a question: the holes that the bolt goes through on each side were oblong, but it didn’t look like wear, it looked like they were made that way. On the passenger side, the oblong hole was a little bit hollowed out from wear. Are they supposed to be oblong holes or is that from 316,000 miles?
My options were to drill the holes bigger, but then I would’ve had to redo the entire bushing assembly and each end of the crossmember. I cut a piece of 1/8 inch flat stock in a rectangle that would cover the entire oblong whole after drilling a hole in it the exact size of the mounting bolt, so you actually had to thread the mounting bolt through that Aluminum shim. Then I used a 24 inch breaker bar to tighten the bolts, so the aluminum would extrude into the oblong hole.
BTW, this aluminum shim trick has been used before on other machinery, and while I was inspecting the crossmember is when I realized the knock I have is the radius arm bushing.
I’m going to drive it and see if that is the solution for the crossmember. After I do the radius arm bushings, if it starts rattling again, I’ll drill out the mounting flanges bigger, and use a bigger bolt, with different bushings, and a bushing sleeve.
As always, please tell me where I’m going nuts (on this item).
I also finally painted the inside of the double fenders over the rear axles.
Three things off the list, one added.
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