While I was trying to figure out what happened to May, half of June has slipped by! Where does the time go?!?!
I’ve been cleaning, priming and painting, mostly - when I get the chance. The prop shaft is cleaned up, painted, and has new u-joints. I still need to get it balanced. The u-joint covers, radius arm safety straps, and anti-roll bar end links have also been cleaned, primed and painted:
The u-joints were a challenge. I haven’t done UJs before and it’ll be too soon when I have to again! I did learn and improve through the experience though. While installing one of the new Spicer 5-153X joints, I dropped a needle bearing and needed to remove the cap to fix it, but the x-body was large enough that it’d hit the flange before I could get the cap pressed out far enough to remove it. I ended up cutting the cap with a cut-off tool just to get it out.
Nervous about screwing it up again, I paused to plan my next steps. I purchased a couple of Spicer 5-1310X UJs (same as the -153X’s but non-greaseable / "sealed for life) to see if those were constructed any differently, and they were! The body was roughly the same as the -153X’s, but the taper between the trunnions on the x-body offered more clearance for pressing. Also, the caps had a longer taper (which made inserting and aligning much easier), and the precision-fit section of the cap was not as deep as the -153X’s. The extra space only seemed to be an issue with the yokes on the gearbox and differential flanges - they are a bit thicker than the yokes on the prop shaft itself. The -1310x’s worked much better for me and I was able to get the job done.
After I get a chance to go through and label the precision-fit areas for masking, I intend to send the parts in the below picture out for cleaning and semi-gloss black powder coating. I’ve already removed all the bearings and bushings and degreased (for the most part). The the two radius arms and the tie plate were straightened for me by a local metal fab shop - it was definitely worth the $75 cost!
