Well, I am just about to pop I am so proud of myself.
I managed to remove my outer halfshaft and hub from the
trailing arm. That was a problem as the hub didn't want
to budge. Then I found, as I had suspected before I
removed it, that the outer U-Joint had some very sublte
play. You could feel a "click", and barely see some
side-to-side motion of 1 or 2 bearings.
I eventually managed to whack out the cups. The books
seem to indicate that these more or less slide out with
a little encouragement. Maybe when they are new, but not now.
I had to be more forceful than I wanted to in order to
get them sliding. I used a socket (former socket now) and
drove the cup and spider down through the yoke. I was very
afraid that I would bend the yoke.
I eventually got all the cups out. One of the cups had
fragmented needle roller bearings. Another two must have had
siezed bearings or something as there were needle roller sized
indentations in the spider.
With some trepidation I got the new cups in. I did the shaft
side first and it went well. I drove one cup and spider
in from the outside nearly all the way through the yoke.
Then I mated the other cup to the spider and drove the
whole thing back to center. The circlips snapped right in.
The hub side was not as easy. I got the whole thing assembled
and found I could not snap in the last circlip! I thought I
had let a roller tip over between the spider and the cup. I was
wrong. But as I tried to disasemble the hub side, some needles
did indeed tip over. I managed to get the thing re-reassembled
with some difficulty. The circlip still would not snap in as
the last cup was slightly too proud. I finally took the
tactic of snapping the circlip into the hole, and then use the
socket to gently drive the circlip and cup inward and have the
circlip snap into the groove. VIOLA done.
I found I had put the spider in with the nipple on the outboard
side of the spider, but I am not sure it will make a difference.
I greased the hell out of it, and eventually got the inner & outer
half shafts to mate. Wired the boot in place. And not it is
11:30pm. I will try it out tomorrow.
These U-Joints are a pain in the neck!!!!!!!
Sooner or later I will have to deal with the other trailing arm.
Somebody over-torqued the nuts holding the hub and stripped
the studs. Some brainiac then drilled and tapped the hub for
some honkin' big bolts. Apparently no problem for 3 of them,
the wall thickness was adequate. Another 3 failed to hold due
to a tapering wall thickness, so they put some blind nuts
on the opposite side of the bolt. But they used ROUND holes,
so the nuts just spin as you tighten them! I will have to
try to wedge something between the wall and the nut so I can
get 1/4th turn more tightening.
Eventually I will have to replace the arm entirely.
-Tony
ARhodes@compuserve.com
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