honda
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- -1
- 6
- Location
- Southern Arizona
Seems to me there are a lot of unknown risks in trying to do an axle only field replacement so I headed to jacks military surplus in Tucson, looking for a complete differential unit. Even finding an axle on short notice proved to be a bridge too far.
Scored a 308 "working" differential from jacks late yesterday afternoon. Puppy turns smooth, sounds good and otherwise looks to fit the bill. Observation of the gear assembly makes me a happy camper. Jack and I took it out of a donor M1009. Fun guy to work with. He's got the usual grips about VA, but who doesn't? Ask me how I know? Google earth his yards. Jack has 4 or five good sized yards all in the same area and he's into selling stuff. Mucho hardware and a lot of it in good condition.
Brake assemblies get rebuilt today, gear assembly cleaned, new seals installed. Gear oil to wait until unit is installed in the field, maybe. I'm parking a transport trailer at the bottom of the mountain to avoid driving the unit on the long drive home after a field repair. A complete differential field swap is a much more sure thing and should take 2-3 hours.( famous last words. I hope this time I'm a bit closer to time estimates )
Before going to Jacks I picked up some new u-bolts/ washers/ nuts from AZ Spring which I ordered bent up in the am from specs provided by the motorpool guys. It's amazing how easy it is for those motorpool guys to drill into a current database and pull up the spec's for something like u-bolts. Toughest part of the extraction at Jacks was removing the parking brake lines. Everything else, including u-bolt nuts made an easy hour. Having the donor truck lifted high up in the air on Jacks forklift made for easy work conditions. Thanks Jack.
In that the donor truck u-bolts were an easy extraction ( PB Blaster and air tools are my friends ) they will go to the field, just in case those guys bending up the replacement u-bolts had one eye closed when they did their work or the spec's were a bit off. Old and new bolts ( compared against each other ) look the same, with new bolts being about 1/4 inch longer.
Pic of replacement housing:
The shadows indicate the end of a long day.
Tally ho. Soon we go off to the races. It's gonna take a few days to get everything staged. I will send pics of the trip. Great white tail hunting ground.
One more thing. The RAZR is out. Too risky for stability. Lot's of drop offs. It's now a 1 ton diesel dually. Trail is barely wide enough ( I hope ) to accommodate, and will need to take jack hammer to cut out some rock interference.
I will check the housing stamps and count the gears upon return and confirm the ratio. All good points. I'm not too concerned at the moment if the front and rear ratios don't line up in that all travel from the current coordinates to the parking lot below are dirt/rock and more rock. Once I get to the transport trailer, it's load her up, tie her down and head for the shop. This is easy a 15 hour extraction day, if all goes well. Gonna be a long day. Hey, life could be worse. I could be in Korea on an unaccompanied.
Scored a 308 "working" differential from jacks late yesterday afternoon. Puppy turns smooth, sounds good and otherwise looks to fit the bill. Observation of the gear assembly makes me a happy camper. Jack and I took it out of a donor M1009. Fun guy to work with. He's got the usual grips about VA, but who doesn't? Ask me how I know? Google earth his yards. Jack has 4 or five good sized yards all in the same area and he's into selling stuff. Mucho hardware and a lot of it in good condition.
Brake assemblies get rebuilt today, gear assembly cleaned, new seals installed. Gear oil to wait until unit is installed in the field, maybe. I'm parking a transport trailer at the bottom of the mountain to avoid driving the unit on the long drive home after a field repair. A complete differential field swap is a much more sure thing and should take 2-3 hours.( famous last words. I hope this time I'm a bit closer to time estimates )
Before going to Jacks I picked up some new u-bolts/ washers/ nuts from AZ Spring which I ordered bent up in the am from specs provided by the motorpool guys. It's amazing how easy it is for those motorpool guys to drill into a current database and pull up the spec's for something like u-bolts. Toughest part of the extraction at Jacks was removing the parking brake lines. Everything else, including u-bolt nuts made an easy hour. Having the donor truck lifted high up in the air on Jacks forklift made for easy work conditions. Thanks Jack.
In that the donor truck u-bolts were an easy extraction ( PB Blaster and air tools are my friends ) they will go to the field, just in case those guys bending up the replacement u-bolts had one eye closed when they did their work or the spec's were a bit off. Old and new bolts ( compared against each other ) look the same, with new bolts being about 1/4 inch longer.
Pic of replacement housing:
The shadows indicate the end of a long day.
Tally ho. Soon we go off to the races. It's gonna take a few days to get everything staged. I will send pics of the trip. Great white tail hunting ground.
One more thing. The RAZR is out. Too risky for stability. Lot's of drop offs. It's now a 1 ton diesel dually. Trail is barely wide enough ( I hope ) to accommodate, and will need to take jack hammer to cut out some rock interference.
I will check the housing stamps and count the gears upon return and confirm the ratio. All good points. I'm not too concerned at the moment if the front and rear ratios don't line up in that all travel from the current coordinates to the parking lot below are dirt/rock and more rock. Once I get to the transport trailer, it's load her up, tie her down and head for the shop. This is easy a 15 hour extraction day, if all goes well. Gonna be a long day. Hey, life could be worse. I could be in Korea on an unaccompanied.