crushtheogre
New member
So with the new 78 "rockcrawler" Mud truck I got a month ago came a list of have to and want to do's.
The most pressing of these was the "broken" axle shaft in the rear 60
I began by disassembling it and discovering the 1st break about 4" in from the hub(this is a full floating axle), then I tried unsuccessfully for a week(a few hours just about every day, an almost broken wrist and definitely smashed thumb-couldn't use it for 3 days; from the 1 5/16" drill bit catching on the slag that welded itself to the inside of the tube; and torqueing and breaking the heavy duty 1970s craftsman drill against my bones.
I bought 2 new 1/2" drills from HF(so I don't care when they break...)and set about drilling more out; made this chain setup to protect myself, drill worked great but eventually metal was too rough inside to keep drilling
Finally got frustrated enough to remove the other axle, pinion cross pin, and sledge hammering a 1" rod from the other side for 3-4 hours to drive the axle pieces out. Once the axle cleared the pinion "cage" with the welded spiders in it(nice welds I must say too), I took that out also.
The long part that was left of the axle spun itself round inside the tube, the rest grenaded inside the tube, most of it got melted onto the inside of the tube and took several days to remove with drills, grinding wheels, chisels and sledge.
Then carb cleaner, shop vac, long magnet, and finally by cleaning out the metal shavings and dust it like a gun barrel with rags wrapped around the magnet. This was actually most effective. I was almost defeated by this bastard but after probably 15- 20 hours of miserable work over a week and half, I was able to spend a morning reassembling everything, getting pinion back together, new seal, correct torque on everything(guy before had done something in there and left bear retaining bolts finger tight, not 110 ft lbs spec.....). I also had to pound out and grind some dents on the bottom of the 60 that caused the diff cover to leak like crazy. This guy really did rock crawl this thing hard!
I took an axle out of my spare 60 and bolted it in, tires back on, drove it around a little, worked.
Thank god I'm done....now onto the steering.....
The most pressing of these was the "broken" axle shaft in the rear 60
I began by disassembling it and discovering the 1st break about 4" in from the hub(this is a full floating axle), then I tried unsuccessfully for a week(a few hours just about every day, an almost broken wrist and definitely smashed thumb-couldn't use it for 3 days; from the 1 5/16" drill bit catching on the slag that welded itself to the inside of the tube; and torqueing and breaking the heavy duty 1970s craftsman drill against my bones.
I bought 2 new 1/2" drills from HF(so I don't care when they break...)and set about drilling more out; made this chain setup to protect myself, drill worked great but eventually metal was too rough inside to keep drilling
Finally got frustrated enough to remove the other axle, pinion cross pin, and sledge hammering a 1" rod from the other side for 3-4 hours to drive the axle pieces out. Once the axle cleared the pinion "cage" with the welded spiders in it(nice welds I must say too), I took that out also.
The long part that was left of the axle spun itself round inside the tube, the rest grenaded inside the tube, most of it got melted onto the inside of the tube and took several days to remove with drills, grinding wheels, chisels and sledge.
Then carb cleaner, shop vac, long magnet, and finally by cleaning out the metal shavings and dust it like a gun barrel with rags wrapped around the magnet. This was actually most effective. I was almost defeated by this bastard but after probably 15- 20 hours of miserable work over a week and half, I was able to spend a morning reassembling everything, getting pinion back together, new seal, correct torque on everything(guy before had done something in there and left bear retaining bolts finger tight, not 110 ft lbs spec.....). I also had to pound out and grind some dents on the bottom of the 60 that caused the diff cover to leak like crazy. This guy really did rock crawl this thing hard!
I took an axle out of my spare 60 and bolted it in, tires back on, drove it around a little, worked.
Thank god I'm done....now onto the steering.....
