So I have not had any time to work out he 80 since the end of July. I moved to Texas for work, and left my wife, house, all my stuff, and my 80 behind while the house was on the market. We closed on the house in Mississippi yesterday so that meant I needed to get the cruiser to Texas. I had put about 250 miles on it since the new short block and other upgrades, so this was a gamble. I had to go 400 miles.
We left out early to make sure I had as much time as I might need to get the miles done. We got about 50 miles down the road and my wife who was driving behind me, said I was leaking something oily, as it was splattering on her windshield. I pulled over at a Love’s truck stop in Tallulah, LA. I left it running and watched for a few minutes and did not see anything dripping. Next, I got under the truck near the drivers door since I thought it would be coming the front since that was where the majority of the work took place, and still did not see anything unusual. As soon as I moved to the rear, I could see what turned out to be gear oil all over everything, axle, underside of the tub, springs, shocks, and anything else you could imagine. So it was obvious I had a leak at the rear differential.
I had replaced the rear differential with one rebuilt by Marlin Crawler, with 4.88 gears and an ARB air locker. My first thought was that I had failed to check and clean out the breather, so I pulled it out and was able to blow through it just fine, so that was not the problem. I was really hoping I did not have to pull the differential in the heat on the asphalt of a truck stop.
I started by disconnecting the rear drive shaft from the differential. I drained the differential. Luckily I had brought every part I thought would be possible, along with a huge supply or tools and fluids. I happened to have an oil change tub with me. As soon as I started loosening the nuts that hold the differential to the axle, I realized that I had most likely just hit the nuts with the impact, but failed to torque to spec. I grabbed the torque wrench, and the nuts were all around 20 ft lbs. So my plan was to loosen all the nuts, confirm everything was flat and straight, and torque to actual right spec of 54 ft lbs. My wife ran to Napa while I was working to get new crush washers for the two diff plugs, and also got me a box of towels and a box of gear oil.
We decided to put in the next Love’s truck stop in the GPS and give it a test to see if I had fixed the problem. When we pulled into the Love’s in Monroe, LA, with a deep sigh of relief, everything was still dry! We decided to shoot for the Louisiana/Texas border and stop at another Love’s to recheck everything, along with a full suspension bolt check, as well as checking all the axle bolts and caliper bolts. Everything was tight and good to go and as I was about to roll back out from under the truck I notices one of the bolts that secures the 4x4 labs rear bumper to the side of the frame was loose and about to fall out. There are 3 on each side and all 6 were loose, so I tighten them back up.
When we made it to the Love’s in Shreveport, LA everything still looked good, so I was just going to gas up and go. As soon as I loosened the gas cap, I got the dreaded hissing of air escaping. I decided I only had 150ish miles to go to our final destination, I would just leave the gas cap off to ensure i did not build up air in the tank and cause bigger issues.
The last 150 miles was mostly uneventful, with the exception of the coolant temp getting up to 217 degrees on the little hill climbs and cooling back down to 208 running down the back sides of the hills. I installed a brand new OEM blue fan clutch, but did not upgrade the oil. Everything coolant hose is brand new, and also did not replace the radiator when I put in the new short block. So I think I am going to upgrade the oil in the fan clutch and get the aluminum radiator that the AZ 80 owners swear by and see if that makes a difference.
Anyway, I added 4 hours on to a 6 hour trip, but we made it successfully!
