Well, started off with taking some gas over to my property, put some in the Ferguson and tried starting it. After a couple tries it lit off and started racing full pelt and the throttle lever didn’t adjust anything and then it threw the battery out of the tray since I didn’t have it tied in yet. Gonna have to fix the negative battery cable now and tie the battery in. Then before starting again I’m gonna have to try to figure out what’s going on since the throttle assembly appears to move fine unless I’m missing something. Anyway, that was enough of that, other things to do today.
Gassed up the push mower and did a quick go at about half of where I can’t really get a tractor right now. That was enough of that too for me, I like push mowing marginally more than a string trimmer, which I do not own. Don’t like string trimming enough to own one, but I’m kicking around the idea of the using one with a brush blade. But that gives you an idea of how little I enjoy push mowing, lol. Probably still wouldn’t have a push mower if it wasn’t that I was given it as a non-running mower to find that the gas tank was full of water, which was the reason it wasn’t running. Dried it out, filled it with gas and it fired right up.
Well then it was back to addressing the axle seals in mom’s 02 Explorer. Had an annoying disagreement with some rust getting the upper ball joint in the rear popped out, had to work some lube in by the spray and hammer method. Ended up pretty much just pulling the entire knuckle off. Couldn’t get the axle to come out of the diff and started wondering if I was wrong and it wasn’t like the front CV axles with the retaining clip, so I went inside and first video I come across is what I’m after and he confirms it is like I thought it was, but says to use a brass drift punch and 3# sledge instead of trying to pry, then use a pry bar to pop the old seal out.
Well, my 3# sledge is up at my buddy’s but I have a 4# here that belonged to one of my grandfathers that should do the trick just fine and my brass drift punch is here, so we are in business. Got under there, got set up and gave it a couple maybe medium hard taps, just trying to get a feel for the awkward swing under there without a lift and I’m having trouble keeping the punch where it belongs after the first couple taps and then it dawns on me it’s already moving. Sweet, even less work than the guy in the video with a less-rusty Explorer had to do. Shoved the pry bar in the seal and pop, it’s out too. Sweet, now we’re making progress!
Open the new seals and wait a minute, I should have marked these but I’m reasonably sure of the two for the front axle and the other two don’t look right at all… Back in the house, double check the part numbers and they show correct, the two I thought were for the front, were for the front and the others must be the rear so I’ll give it a go, except the two for the rear are way not right. Back in the house to make a call. Parts store says those are the seals listed for the rear all the way up to at least 05. Well, they aren’t right and they actually look like they are for an 8.8” like in my F-150 (I’ll confirm that later). So he says hang on and does some searching and comes back, ok, I found the right ones, our system is wrong, you’ll have them tomorrow.
Well, I guess that’s that, delay until tomorrow. Then I start to thinking that maybe I should just go ahead and replace the lower ball joint bushing thing on the side that’s currently apart since I did the other side not long ago and right now everything is out of the way and I won’t have to fight everything to change it so I’ll get that tomorrow too. Hopefully after getting these axle seals done I won’t have to mess with the Explorer for a little bit.
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