Rear axle...complete!

I'm very nearly done with the chassis!  The past couple of weeks have been spent getting the rear axle finished.  This entailed installing the locker, brakes, painting all the hardware and near seals.  For the most part things were pretty straight forward.  It tore down much easier than I anticipated.  Cleaning parts however was not as much fun.  There was a lot of brake debris, dirt, grease, etc built up in the brake plates.  It took awhile to get it clean up, but after a couple of days they were ready for paint.  I continued with the same process I had used on the rest of the chassis...pre clean the parts, rust convertor, encapsulator and frame paint.  Everything looks brand new!  Next up came the locker.  I decided to go with a Lock Rite automatic locker.  Reviews were amazing and the install is very easy for it.  Overall it really was a piece of cake.  The install equated to removing the side and spider gears and replacing them with the locker couplers and drivers.  The hardest part in the whole process was putting in the short axle side C-clip just because the space to drop it into was very small.  I did manage to get it in with very little effort.  What actually turned out to the be the hardest part was sliding the shear pins over and installing the snap springs.  The first two went in no problem.  The third one...I didn't realize the shear pin wasn't pushed all the way over and when I tried to put the spring in, it flew away (I heard it hit the ceiling...but from there who knows!).  That meant I had to purchase another set of springs, but they were easy to find online.  Once I figured out that the pin wasn't in all the way, I used a punch and hammer and tapped it into place.  The replacement spring was in with no problem and the locker install was complete.  Next up I installed the new rear brakes.  I even managed to get most of the new brake lines in, but ran into a problem on the driver side rear double brake union.  The replacement I bought ended up not working...it has 10 mm holes while the brake lines have 9 mm flare nuts.  Apparently those unions are impossible to find!  So I'm still trying to figure out what I need to do...either find one some place or cut off the 9 mm flare nuts, replace them with 10 mm flare nuts and re-flare the ends.  Time will tell on that.  The good news though...I have a rolling chassis again!  Next up...drive shafts and parking brake!

Paint Removal...

Well...cooler weather means I've been out working on the Landcruiser.  I finally ordered what I needed for the rear axle...seals, locker, paint, etc.  I decided on the Powertrax Lockrite locker...easy to install and had great reviews.  Just waiting on it to arrive.  The rear axle shouldn't be too bad...basically paint and put back together and add the new brakes.  Besides painting which takes about 5 days...I think I should have it done in a couple days of work if not one.

Otherwise I've been doing lots of paint removal.  I've found a bit more rust damage than I was hoping but most of it is on level surface so I should be able to cut it out and weld patch panels in.  Basically I've decided on a process to remove paint...aircraft paint stripper...sander...wire wheel...fine grit hand sanding.  Its a long process but the results have been good.  The bare metal is in great shape except for a few areas.  The engine side of the firewall I was worried about.  I think somebody either ran brake fluid down from the master cylinders or the cylinders leaked...all down that side of the firewall was pretty heavily rusted.  After some work though...all of it is surface rust and shined up nicely.  I'm not quite done with it yet...but here are the results so far of the paint removal.

Steering Box In, Paint is Slowly Disappearing...

I know its been awhile, but summer heat has kept me out of the garage.  But over the past few days things have cooled down enough for me to get out there and start working again.  So my plans for this winter:  finish the chassis (rear axle and brakes, install brake lines, parking brake rebuild, install new U joints and install the drive shafts, radiator and hoses, and a couple of sensors (reverse switch, oil, temp) and make the sure the body is ready for paint by late March.  It sounds like a lot of work, but overall its not too bad.

I finally made it to the hardware store this week and bought the bolts I needed to install my newly rebuild steering box.  The guys at Classic Cruisers in Salida did a good job and apparently it was in REALLY bad shape, so I'm glad I had it done.  Its really an easy install...4 bolts to to mount it to the mounting bracket, turn the steering rod all the way to one side...make it...then turn it 2.5 times back the other way...that is center.  Install the drag link end and rod...bolt it all up.  Next...adjust the drag link rod by turning it to get the drag link vertical.  Tighten...and done.  I tested it out...and everything is turning nice and smooth...much better than before I tore everything apart. 

Also over the past few days I've been working on getting rid of paint so I can start the body work.  So far I've done most of the bed which has much less surface rust than I thought it would.  Even down by the rear seal its pretty solid with minor surface rust only.  I'll do my best to tap out the small dents in the bed, but I'm strongly leaning toward putting bedliner on the floor to help keep the moisture out and toughen the flooring up some.  Still a long ways to go until that point, but the wheels always have to be turning to figure out how to make it better than it could be.

Steering Rods are Back On

I finally ordered and received the tie rod ends, so I set to work re-installing the steering rods and stabilizer.  I figured it would be an easy process, and besides one cotter pin it was.  It took about an hour to get everything put back together.  I will still need to get an alignment done in the future, but for now it looks like things are running pretty straight.  The good news about it...the front tires won't flop around since they are now tied together with the tie rod!  Makes for moving the chassis much easier.  I will be taking my steering box down to Classic Cruisers in Salida in a few days for them to rebuild it.  Everything I read said to have somebody experienced do it, so I'll let them.  Besides the price they quoted me is very reasonable compared to other places. 

Driver Side Knuckle Complete...

My goal for today was to get the driver side knuckle finished.  I must say, having down the passenger side first really helped, I knew how everything went together and how things went.  The passenger side took over 7 hours to put back together.  The driver side a little less than 5.  After pulling the driver side apart, I was really glad I decided to redo the knuckles.  Not only had the axle seal failed and allowed differential fluid into the knuckle, the oil seal and rear felt seals had failed and leaked water into the knuckle.  This solidified the grease and left the bearings in a bad state.  Just like the passenger side, the bearings literally fell apart as I took them out.  The driver side required much more cleaning effort.  Internal parts had dried and caked grease on them along with some surface rust.  But after a thorough cleaning and paint job, they look brand new.  All in all the knuckle went together without any issues.  I learned my lesson on the other side and installed the new wheel cylinder brake lines while the unions were still loose.  This made things a lot easier.  The only other issue I ran into was with the wheel cylinders.  I went off the web post I've been using along with the service manual and the old ones that came off...but adjuster clips were on the wrong side of the cylinder and wouldn't allow the shoe hold down springs to hook onto the shoes.  I did what made sense and flipped the cylinders so the adjuster clips were on the outside.  After further reading...I believe this to be correct.  My final step in the process was to clean the front wheels.  There was a lot of grease and caked dirt on both...so I scrubbed them cleaner than they were.  That is ok...sometime in the future I will get new wheels for the Cruiser.

Putting the Knuckle Back Together

So the next item up for business is putting the passenger side knuckle back together.  The instructions were long, but very thorough, so the process went well.  It just took awhile.  I really didn't have any issues at all which really surprised me.  The only two things I ran into were the brake shoes didn't fit in the wheel cylinder slots...that was fixed by grinding the shoes down a hair so they did fit...and having to reuse the washers on the hub since the ones I bought to replace them were a bit too big.  Overall the process was straightforward, just time consuming.  Now its on to the other side!

Knuckles...

So today I started the dirtiest part of the restoration so far...the knuckle rebuild.  For those that don't know what the knuckles are...they are the front ball joints that allow the Landcruiser to have the front wheels in motion, the brakes and all the front bearings.  They are very important!  Today my goal was to tear down the passenger side so I could get the parts ready for cleaning and paint, and hopefully by next weekend be putting it back together.  I found wonderful instructions online and the process was VERY easy to tear down.  The first thing to do is remove the tire...followed by the hub, brakes, brake backing plate, spindle and finally the knuckle.  All the bolts came out easy...except for the last couple of brake lines...I'll deal with them later, but they are a pain.  The brakes were a piece of cake to take apart.  The most difficult part of the process was the steering and bearing studs.  They have to come out, but are held in by pesky cone washers.  A bit of research, a couple of nuts threaded on and a big hammer...and they turned right out.  The other problematic area was the axle seals inside the ball.  The seal puller I bought was a bit big, but after working at it they finally came out!  The final step in the process (there were 40 altogether for the tear down) was to wipe the grease out.  A role of paper towels later and it looks new.  Next up is cleaning the parts I can paint and painting them.

The Suspension is On!!!

Well...I finally decided on a lift kit a few weeks back and it arrived this week.  I decided to go with Old Man Emu (OME) out of Australia.  Great reviews and the kit comes with everything (except for a few washers) that I would need for the suspension replacement and lift.  I didn't want to go nuts with a lift, as there are all kinds of options.  The OME only has about 2.5" of lift due to the laws of Australia and the regulations on how high they can raise vehicles.  So a chunk of change later...it arrived and I was ready to get to work!

With my buddy Brad's help, we managed to get everything but the shocks mounted in about 5 hours.  It all starts out with inserting the rubber bushings into the springs and shackle hangers.  I used lots of grease which was recommended and a rubber mallet.  They went in surprisingly easy.  Next up...inserting the shackle pins into the hangers and spring eyes.  Now this was a tough task.  The rubber bushing are inserted into each side of the hanger, so as you use the mallet to get the pins in, the other side of the bushing comes out.  Trying to get them in was tough.  We tried several methods...the best seemed to be with each of us using a mallet on each side, hitting at the same side.  This kept the bushing in place as the pin went in.  Each of them was a very tight fit.  Three of the shackle pins went in pretty smoothly...but the passenger side front fought us.  We finally ended up buying a C-clamp to clamp the bushings in place and finally after much work get the pin in.

After the shackles are in place, you raise the spring into the shackle, and then raise the other side into the pin hanger.  The pin hangers went in much easier, except for the mounting bolts since the holes never seemed to line up.  A bit of tapping with a hammer and re-tapping the holes and everything finally went in.  The last step was to raise the springs to the axles and use the u-bolts and u-bolt skid plates to mount the axles to the springs.  This went smoothly.  Lastly was the shocks.  Well we didn't get them installed today since I didn't have the correct washers.  I didn't realize there were two different sizes involved and just got 16 of the smaller washers.  So soon I'll have to make a trip to the hardware store to pick those and cotter pins up.  Once the shocks are in place, I will just need to torque the nuts to the correct specifications and the suspension will be complete.  Next up...finish the suspension...and begin the front knuckle and brake rebuild.