Wednesday's work 5-20-2009

Received and installed the new axle hub oil seals. The day before I pulled the oil drain and fill plugs from the differential and drained the unit. When it was empty I sprayed brake cleaner fluid to clean any gunk out of the bottom of the unit and let it sit overnight. Letting sit that long let any little bit of old axle oil drain out plus it ensured that all the brake cleaner solution evaporated out.

I reinstalled the drain plug and refilled it with 90-wt gear oil. Half synthetic gear oil and half regular gear oil with Teflon additive.

Tip: removing the drain and fill plugs is easy if you just push a ½” wobble drive extension into the square opening of the plugs and turn them with a ratchet. You don’t need the special tool and the wobble extension has the perfect taper for a snug fit.

After the oil seals were installed I reassembled the split seal plate plates and rear brakes on both sides, fit the whole brake assemblies to the axle, put the hubs back on and hooked up the hydraulics. I doubt I got the 150 lbs of torque on the hub nut since it is so damned hard to so without brakes to hold the hub in place and with the car off the ground. I’ll do a final torque when the wheels and tires are on and the car is back on the ground. I haven’t bled the system yet since I still have to replace the flexible rubber brake hose on the rear end with the stainless braided Teflon hose.



















Thursday I’m going to replace the flexible rubber brake hose on the rear end, and the parking brake cable, adjust the rear brakes and do any final paint touch up on the differential. I’m then going to bleed out the hydraulics to test the Ezi-bleeders on the rear end. I also got a new engine oil drain plug with the magnet on it to pull any metallic junk out of the engine. I’ll install that when I change the engine oil before the next restart. I also received the second palstic battery box, yippy for me!

My dash coverlay came in and it fits perfectly unlike the one I bought in the early 90’s which fit like OJ Simpson’s glove. I also got the fiberglass “Special Tuning Air Damn” from Moss (part # 475-195) and I must say it is a huge piece of shit. It is one of the worst casting I have ever seen. The cutout in the center is not even close to symmetrical, there are creases and dimples all over it and it looks like this particular one was dropped on the pavement and dragged over to the shipping box. But it was on sale for around $75.00 so I really can’t complain much. I was gong to put a few layers on fiberglass on the back of it to reinforce it anyway so a little cleanup work isn’t such a big deal.

Put in another parts order today. Had to get new seat back foams (the ex wife threw my new ones away when she cleaned out “her” garage. I also ordered the urethane bushings for the tranny center mounting pin, splash guard extension seals, metal plates for the tranny stayrod pads and the poly bushings for the shock absorbers when I replace them.

Aside from some big items like the windshield, tires, battery and carpet, I have just about all of the small assorted parts needed to finish the car. Of course, not that I’ve written this, I’ll find out I need a buh-zilion other little things that I missed on this parts order…such is life.