From: Steve Grammont (islander@midmaine.com)
Date: Sat Aug 09 2003 - 15:42:33 PDT
Hi all,
I promised a bunch of you that I would report on my progress.
Unfortunately, after a couple of weeks delay I finally got back at it
and have not much good news. Sorry for the length!!!
---A reminder... the problem is that the upper needle bearing in the MULE's drop axels are dead ended, meaning you can't get the bearing out easily. Lots of suggestions were made, some of which I tried. So far none have worked.
---
I went down to my mechanic's and got a specially bearing puller that is designed to get in behind the bearing and then allows you to pound it out. Sounds good in theory, but the genius who designed this thing has the bearing sitting flush against the back of the housing. So the tool had nothing to grab.
OK, so I instead decide to try the backup suggestion for this tool. That is to remove the needles and then use the bearing's lip for leverage. Tried it, shattered it. Didn't budge a millimeter. Unfortunately this ruled out the "hydraulic" method (pack full of grease, get tight seal, pound out using broom handle or other device) because the lip was destroyed, thus making a seal impossible.
This scratched 2 methods of removal from my list :-/
Next attempt was to use brute force using a chisel. Got myself a couple of nice, brand new ones to make sure I could get an edge on it. After dulling both and sharppening one again, I gave up. I didn't luck out with the sleeve shattering, but I did manage to get about 1/4 the way towards the back. If I had kept it up, perhaps I would have made it. However, I have serious doubts that one cut would have done it anyway so I stopped.
Three methods of removal now scratched :-/
This leaves really only two different methods:
4) grinding it out using a special air tool
5) application of hot (to housing) and cold (to bearing)
Since both of these require the removal of the housing, I had to bite the bullet and disassemble FAR too much of the vehicle to get the housing off. Did I mention the guy who designed this is a genius? I hope he retired after the MULE project. I think his skills would be better utilized making kites for his grand children. Grrrrr... (for those of you who don't know, the bolts that hold the outer housing to the central one aren't removable. This means you can't just drop the piece out, but rather have to remove the forward and middle support tubes, the starter housing, and the engine cage. This was done after some wasted time, bunged up knuckles, and streams of profanity).
The good news is that by removing the housing I found out I had another problem. And that is the cross shaft had serious just below the surface rust all over it. From what I can tell a lot of water sat in various parts of this MULE for a long time. So at least I can arrest the progress of the decay before it became structural.
I'll take this down to my mechanic on Monday and see what will work.
Steve
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