Well, after eight months of getting wet and gathering redwood leaves, I
finally got to sworking on the GT6. Picked up the rebuilt rear-end on Friday
and with the promise of assorted brewed beverages, I recruited Daren to help me
get the little beastie in. First thing to do on Saturday was get the dead BMW
yanked out of the driveway and put the GT6 in it's place so we could work on
concrete instead of dirt. After pulling out the BMW, I had the driver pull
the GT out of it's resting place and then I'd coast it down the driveway.
However, the stub axle finally pulled out of the rear and it looked like it had
a major camber problem. The tow driver couldn't put it down the driveway cause
it's too steep, so we'll have to work on it part way in the road.
Daren shows up about this time and promptly takes a picture of the leaning
car. We get it up on jackstands, pull the axles and spring, and 2.5 hours
later the diffs on the ground and the first bottles of Pete's Wicked Ale are
cracked open. Now the fun part, replacing the axle u-joints plus the rear
driveshaft joint which was discovered bad upon inspection. Since, I only had 2
U-joints, I sent my wife out to fetch another one. We took a break on the
deck, swigging Pete's ale and enjoying the redwoods. Hopefully, we'd get
most of the work done before Daren had to leave for his hot date that evening.
I wasn't optimistic though, since u-joints almost never go out or come in easy.
With fresh ales in hand, we got the parts out of the TRF box and ambled
to the garage work bench. The first u-joint came out and went in easy,
surprisingly, and the second one wasn't to bad coming out. The second one went
together OK too, but the last cap wouldn't press in far enough for the snap
ring. Sh*t, looks like one of the needles fell out of place. Took it apart
and sure enough that's what it was. Got it back together. Time for another
brew. My wife returned with the last u-joint. Neither of the joints from TRF
had grease fittings, but this one had some odd type of fitting on the end cap
that looked like a screw with a hollowed out head and a ball check valve.
Great idea, but how do you get grease in this thing??? Anyway, this driveshaft
joint had never been replaced since I had the car for the last 8 years. This
one's not gonna be easy. After lots of torching, banging and pressing with a
vise, we got it in. By this time it's 3:00 and Daren's got an hour before he
has to leave.
We get the diff and muffler bolted in place. Daren washes up and gets on
his merry way. (BTW Daren, how'd it go Saturday night???) I
get the axles in and bolted up. This time the axles bolts are NOT going to
come loose. I used new bolts with aircraft locknuts and loktite. Since I'm on
my own, the only hard part left is to get the spring bolted in. This time I
did it a little different. I placed the spring over the rear and put the axle
bolts in first. Then I put the new studs in the rear but temporarily
substituted two longer ones from the old rear. Put the retaining plate on and
wrenched the two long ones down enough to get the other nuts on. Removed the
long studs and replaced with the correct ones. Wrenched them all down evenly
and the spring was in place. That was a hell of a lot easier than trying to
pry up the spring ends to get the axle bolts in. Attached the shocks, brake
lines and brake cables. Vacuum bled the brakes and put the wheels on.
By this time it's about 8:00. I do a quick check of the fluids and put
the charged up battery in. It's been 6 months since I started it last. I turn
it over a bit without the coil wire to get some oil circulated. Then hook the
coil back up. Pull the choke and crank, vvroooommmm, first crank it starts
right up. Lots of black smoke and some coughing, but I let it idle roughly til
it warms up a bit. Shut it down, get it off the stands and start it back up.
It's almost dark now and the cars not registered, so I just cruise about a 1/4
mile up the road and back. It feels great to be behind the wheel again!!!
Pull it into the driveway and clean up the tools. Now I need to send out some
carbs for rebuild, tune it up, change the fluids and hoses, and clean it up
inside and out and I should be back on the road again in a few weeks. I was
pretty sore after it was all done but it was well worth it!!!!!
Mike G.
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