' Just finished putting new thrustwashers in the differential on my '76.
Between Lindsay Porter and John Twist's new Tech book, I was pretty well
armed. Of course I had to break stride & drive 50 miles to borrow a slide
hammer to get a half-shaft out - mine did not respond to rapping with a
hammer. And nobody tells you how hard it can be to pull that pinion pin
out (John hints at it - suggesting you have to grab it with a *tight*
vice-grips, Porter says to pull it out with a pliers - Hah!) . And when
you put the pinion wheels and new thrust washer back in, nobody tells you
that the washers will slide out from under the wheels when you try to roll
them back into the carrier. And once they do stay in, the trick is to get
them precisely aligned so the pinion pin can be driven back in. It takes a
bit of fussing, to be sure, but I had the car up on stands for less than 24
hours and most of the clunking is gone.
So tomorrow, me 'n the '76 roll out of New Castle Virginia - heading for
Bloomington Indiana for a job-related conference. After that, we head to
Auburn Alabama to watch my son wear a funny hat and get an expensive piece
of parchment. ' Hope there's enough time in between to get new leaf
springs on the '73 before the Tanglewood show in Winston-Salem NC on the
11th. ' Hope to see a few of you from this part of the country at the
show.
In the meantime, since I'll be away from the computer for a week or so, I'm
unsubscribing to avoid electronic clutter. ' Be back later...
Allen Bachelder
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