Well, after three long days mostly spent in a cold garge, I'm finally finished 'the job'. As others have mentioned, it's not 'hard' but it does take a lot of time to do the work.
I did find some birf soup on the DS but the PS was still mostly intact (maybe a bit of leaking). I replaced all the bearings but most of the components appear to be in fairly good shape.
I attribute the lengthy time to a number of things:
- I was a newb with this job. I've done other work on my vehicles, but this was by far the biggest job I have undertaken. This means you spend a lot of time reading the manual, rereading, reviewing print-outs of posts, etc.
- I was alone - have some help can be very useful to help clean parts, hold things, etc
- I had to go get a few things that I forgot or underestimated (ie brake cleaner, fish scale at cottage, cheap diff fluid)
- Most of the birf summaries that I have reviewed do not include ALL the steps in a FULL job (eg replacing all the bearings - it takes some time to pound out/in new races, replacing the rear seals, etc) so my mental image of the job was a bit off.
- Parts cleaning - this was a major PITA. Most of it wasn't too bad, but some axx hat (as Landpimp would call them) at some point did a bunch of shoddy work - I found two gasket locations, on both sides (so 4 in total) where they had double gasketed. Getting the old gasket off was a major PITA. All of this was reason enought to do this yourself - the guy that is being paid to do this has no real incentive to do the job properly.
- I live in the rust belt - so getting parts off took some time
- Working conditions were not ideal (unheated garage at my brothers, no proper work bench, etc)
- I ran into a few problems that had to be dealt with. The most significant was on the PS with a steering knuckle stud that became unseated. I had to take the outter knuckle off, clean-up the newly applied grease and clean all of the threads and reset with locktight. I think I may replace all of these studs as two of them have been replaced with shorter pins (likely the same axx hat)...
(can this be done without taking the birf apart? ie if my mechanic has it on a lift, can they just remove the studs, degrease and put new ones in? I don't feel like doing this on my back in the cold)
Tools and other stuff that I found helpful that weren't on the list:
- bought a set of craftsman pry bars just on a whim as they were $7. I used these to help remove the bearing cap, etc. Seal setting tool - again on a whim - $10 for a piece you hammer on and a number of diffeent sized rings - made setting the seals a simple job.
- I had a set of brass drifts, if I were to do this again, I would also get a brass hammer so I could just beat on things directly (like the wall and the floor
)
- I used disposable aluminum turkey roasting pans filled with some oil absorbing material. Once the birfs were clean, I just took them outside and put them in the garbage. I also had some large, long boxes (the box my jack came in) one for each side. As I cleaned the parts I set all the parts in the right box and added all the new gaskets, seals and bearings.
A special note of thanks to CDan - easy to order from - everything I needed was there and some spare parts that I requested. I ordered on Wed afternoon and the parts were at my house on Friday AM - not bad from across the country and in a different country!
Can someone tell me what the shop time is for this job - I'd love to know?:
- Axle dis and reass with new bearings
- Replacing seals and repacking gaskets
- Replacing trunion bearings
I still have the vibration problem - so I need to work on tracking that down. I've pulled the rear shaft and will clean and replace it this week. The wheels are fine, so I'll pull the front shaft next and see how it's doing. I don't think it's tires as viration is only when I'm on the gas - generally fine when not accelerating and nothing in neutral.
Cheers, Hugh
I did find some birf soup on the DS but the PS was still mostly intact (maybe a bit of leaking). I replaced all the bearings but most of the components appear to be in fairly good shape.
I attribute the lengthy time to a number of things:
- I was a newb with this job. I've done other work on my vehicles, but this was by far the biggest job I have undertaken. This means you spend a lot of time reading the manual, rereading, reviewing print-outs of posts, etc.
- I was alone - have some help can be very useful to help clean parts, hold things, etc
- I had to go get a few things that I forgot or underestimated (ie brake cleaner, fish scale at cottage, cheap diff fluid)
- Most of the birf summaries that I have reviewed do not include ALL the steps in a FULL job (eg replacing all the bearings - it takes some time to pound out/in new races, replacing the rear seals, etc) so my mental image of the job was a bit off.
- Parts cleaning - this was a major PITA. Most of it wasn't too bad, but some axx hat (as Landpimp would call them) at some point did a bunch of shoddy work - I found two gasket locations, on both sides (so 4 in total) where they had double gasketed. Getting the old gasket off was a major PITA. All of this was reason enought to do this yourself - the guy that is being paid to do this has no real incentive to do the job properly.
- I live in the rust belt - so getting parts off took some time
- Working conditions were not ideal (unheated garage at my brothers, no proper work bench, etc)
- I ran into a few problems that had to be dealt with. The most significant was on the PS with a steering knuckle stud that became unseated. I had to take the outter knuckle off, clean-up the newly applied grease and clean all of the threads and reset with locktight. I think I may replace all of these studs as two of them have been replaced with shorter pins (likely the same axx hat)...
(can this be done without taking the birf apart? ie if my mechanic has it on a lift, can they just remove the studs, degrease and put new ones in? I don't feel like doing this on my back in the cold)
Tools and other stuff that I found helpful that weren't on the list:
- bought a set of craftsman pry bars just on a whim as they were $7. I used these to help remove the bearing cap, etc. Seal setting tool - again on a whim - $10 for a piece you hammer on and a number of diffeent sized rings - made setting the seals a simple job.
- I had a set of brass drifts, if I were to do this again, I would also get a brass hammer so I could just beat on things directly (like the wall and the floor
)- I used disposable aluminum turkey roasting pans filled with some oil absorbing material. Once the birfs were clean, I just took them outside and put them in the garbage. I also had some large, long boxes (the box my jack came in) one for each side. As I cleaned the parts I set all the parts in the right box and added all the new gaskets, seals and bearings.
A special note of thanks to CDan - easy to order from - everything I needed was there and some spare parts that I requested. I ordered on Wed afternoon and the parts were at my house on Friday AM - not bad from across the country and in a different country!
Can someone tell me what the shop time is for this job - I'd love to know?:
- Axle dis and reass with new bearings
- Replacing seals and repacking gaskets
- Replacing trunion bearings
I still have the vibration problem - so I need to work on tracking that down. I've pulled the rear shaft and will clean and replace it this week. The wheels are fine, so I'll pull the front shaft next and see how it's doing. I don't think it's tires as viration is only when I'm on the gas - generally fine when not accelerating and nothing in neutral.
Cheers, Hugh
... you were supposed to put those back in!!! 
Next time around, if I could find a dealer I was really happy with, I would get them to do the job.
