First, thanks to everyone who replied to my questions about the seals and
boots.
Finally got around to take the truck to a friend's shop and work on that
front leaking seal. Got the seals, boots, brake shoes, just in case, and --
I'd like to thank the guys at Richard Green's for the help and good price on
these. (as it turned out the shoes on the truck were like new)
OK, everything up to the inner seal retainer came out easy (followed some of
the tips and tricks from pass messages here too). That retainer did not
want to move at all. Working with a slide hammer for almost an hour did not
yield a thing, not much of a lip to crab the retainer itself so we had to
grab the back of the seal. I called Memphis to ask their service dept. if
there was a trick to it, and the guy there said "insert the shaft back into
the housing just barely past the seal itself, and then rock the shaft back
and forth a few times and it will come out, this is what we do". So I did,
and other than destroying the seal retainer's center hole and chewing it up
with the shaft, nothing!!!. I ordered a new retainer from Memphis (old
axle, with 5 balls, not with a U-Joint), and one from White Owl, both next
day air (had to finish it before the parade today. The one from White Owl
came the next morning, the one from Memphis is not here yet). Back to taking
the retainer out though. Sitting and watching the retainer for a few
minutes, realizing it is a goner, I figured, why not take a screw driver and
push the seal out of the retainer and into the axle housing first. Did that
and realized I now have a good chunk of hard metal to grab on to on the
inside with the slide hammer. We put on bigger hooks, and went to work
again, It came flying out. We couldn't believe what was holding it so
tight. The &^%$%^#$^% mechanic who changed (or maybe it was the factory) it
last, use Permatex to secure it in place, the stuff that works like crazy
glue and turns real hard and brown.
>From then on it was a piece of cake. We used RTV on the new one, and made
sure that little cork gasket was in its place too. The manual was very
helpful.
It would have been much easier to take the retainer out if we pushed the
seal in first. The seal did not allow for a solid jolt when you slid the
weight, because of the type of metal it is made off, and because it has
rubber in it. So if any of you is going to do this, Push the seal into the
housing, before you try to pull the retainer out.
So after 18 quarts of 80-90 Gear oil, and 22 quarts of Shell 15-40 (per
Gene), and two days in the shop, it is back out and running. It took us
about 35 minutes to mount the legs and ring (which I just got), and I still
had time to go to the Y and do my water aerobics.
Ahhhh, the joy of OD'ing :-)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Dec 07 2001 - 00:36:57 PST