What's up with this banner thing?
If you don't see a navigation bar on the left, CLICK HERE

May 3, 2004
2.5 hours

Rear Axle Disassembly Part 2

Next I removed the bearing caps. Interestingly, all lash adjustments are done via threaded cups inserted in the ends of the bearing caps. They are held in place with small fingers that are secured by cotter pins.

Lash is adjusted via the threaded cup (arrow) and secured with
a small "finger" to prevent them from moving.

The carrier popped right out once the bearing caps were removed. The roller bearings are pressed on to the carrier, so I'll have to press them off later. Again, everything seems to be in excellent condition. I really feel lucky to have found such a well-preserved car. Nick Seybold tells me that he often sees beveled gearsets worn beyond recognition--glad I don't have one of those. Oh, and Nick also pointed out that the numbers on the ring gear indicate that I have a 3.90 gearset (the pinion and ring gear have 13 and 51 teeth respectively). I wonder if it would be worthwhile to install an NOS 3.60 gearset that I have available to me for a reasonable price. I'm leaning towards leaving it alone.

Carrier popped right out with the removal of the bearing caps.

Inside of housing is in great shape. I believe the orange paint inside
was called Glyptal-Glym, which is designed to seal cast iron. Dig
the slurry of oil sludge in the bottom of the housing, too. Yuck.

With the guts removed, I pulled the brake backing plates off the ends of the housing and removed the control arms from the rear spring perches, which are spot-welded to the axle housing. With that done, the last part to come off was the pinion housing and torque tube. The service manual is filled with warnings to not remove the torque tube from the pinion housing, and Nick reports that I'll get hurt if I try it, so I'm guessing that I'll just leave it as a complete assembly. I'll have to clean it by hand and paint it instead of powdercoating it, but I don't see a problem with that. But the housing and the control arms will join my pile of large items that will be going to the powdercoater's place in the next few weeks.

Housing is ready to be cleaned and powdercoated. You can also
just barely make out some numbers stenciled on the top of the
housing--I'm going to try to duplicate these after the housing
is powdercoated.

Back to Part 1
Next Restoration Day

E-mail me at toolman8@sbcglobal.net

This page accessed times
Last modified on 02/06/2005

Thanks, Fidget!