New truck in the drive

[JohnnyPopper]

Nice work Dr.! Looking good.

Yeah, I've had the same Amazon woes. Just ship it to someone you know.

Oh, what's in the Barbie tool kit?

[Dr_Snooz]

Lol. That toolbox used to be red. It never occurred to me that it has turned pink in the 20 years since it was new.

[Shifty]

Oh, what's in the Barbie tool kit?

Corvette and Jeep tools, duh...

[Dr_Snooz]

Doh.



I was hoping to reuse these. Sigh.

The signs were there, so I'm not surprised. They were covered in junkyard paint pen hieroglyphs. The sloppy U-joints were rusted into place real good. When we pressed them out, they bent the shafts, then exploded apart, throwing everything on the floor.

We have an upgraded press now and were in the process of bending the shafts straight when we discovered the crack.



On further inspection, I found the sealing surfaces all pitted and nasty.



There's a new set of axle shafts on the way now, and my wallet is relieved of the terrible burden of excess cash.

Oh, and a set of these is also on the way.



Then, I was looking at all of this.



I was pondering the tedium of cleaning and painting it all, and looking for a good excuse not to. Some of it has gone missing in the grass and gravel, so I already have to order more. It would be a shame to have mismatched hardware, but maybe not shame enough to justify another $100. Finally, it occurred to me that this hardware is 34 years old. Who knows how fatigued it is?? It could be on the very brink of failure! Thus, for safety's sake, I have come up with a clever excuse for getting out of this job. I believe Ben Franklin said it best:

“How convenient does it prove to be a rational animal, that knows how to find or invent a plausible pretext for whatever it has an inclination to do!” ― Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Of course, with the general quality of everything these days, the new stuff could easily be worse than what I have.

[JohnnyPopper]

I cleaned every component with a 1/9 ratio of molasses to water. Don't leave iron or soft metals too long, will pit and even dissolve.

I used a heavy duty plastic trash can with a lid (smells like a sweaty gym)

[Dr_Snooz]

I'm speechless. Molasses, lol! It's beautiful. There's a lot of love in that truck.

[JohnnyPopper]

Right??? Who'd have guessed?

I'm pretty sure I saw someone post it on this site, pulled out a part and rinsed it off with a hose.

I used this product to cover the bare metal. It seals any rust and it lays down a rubberized coating.

[Dr_Snooz]

I'm still chipping away at this project. I wrecked a leaf spring shackle bushing while installing it. I didn't really wreck it, but there's a wad of grease preventing it from seating fully. It will be wrecked after I remove it. Thus, I'm waiting on parts again.

You remember that I installed a remote control on my power tailgate window? Then the window did the shuffle-and-squeak every time I used it? I'm not sure what happened, but the motor failed suddenly. Fortunately it failed with the window up. I could have replaced the motor, but that leaves the whole shuffle-and-squeak problem. Instead, I replaced everything with the manual crank appropriate to my Scottsdale.



Yeah, it's a little crooked and doesn't work as well as I'd like, but I'm happy with it for the first time since I bought the truck.

Then I tackled the horrid trans mess. The pan gasket looked like this.



Now I know why it was leaking so bad. Dreadful. Based on the cherry red color of the fluid, I assumed I had serviced it recently, but it was actually way back in 2015. Hey, there were three TH400s floating around here until recently. It's hard to keep track. Anyway, I used an ATP filter back then, which is a mistake I won't repeat again.

Since I had it out, I cleaned the pan and installed a drain bolt.



I take it personally when I have to wrestle that full pan down from under the truck. I always slop it everywhere. It's what I call "fork in the eye" engineering. Like they're just trying to jab you by making it that way. The drain is just a bolt-on. Hope it doesn't leak. I also replaced the detent wire pass through, which was wobbling around in the housing and also leaking.

That's all for now, but I'll probably start on the diff here soon, now that painting is done.

Painting takes so long!

[Captkaos]

Run a plastic crush washer under the nut.

[Shifty]

Run a plastic crush washer under the nut.

This!  It should have come with one.

[Dr_Snooz]

Run a plastic crush washer under the nut.

This!  It should have come with one.

It did! 

[Dr_Snooz]

That didn't take long.



SMH

[Dr_Snooz]

I'm finally getting the diff set up in this axle. This is probably the pattern I'll go with.

[Shifty]

Decent pattern! 

[Dr_Snooz]

Thank you! I was hoping someone would weigh in.