Our little Outty needed a some TLCWhen I went to strip it down to inspect, service, etc a week or so ago I found that she was leaking out the front and back output shafts, at the transmission. I called PJ in a panic to see if he had time to help me tear it down to see what we could fix. Luckily he had time and more than enough patience and away we went. Spent the entire day last Saturday tearing it apart, then I ran for parts and we put it all back together. In one day! Sweetness, right?
Not so fast...
When we went to button everything up, PJ handed me a grease gun and I went at the zerks all around the machine. When we got to the back of the machine, PJ grabbed the rear drive-shaft and damned if the rear most universal wasn't trashed! In order to get the output shafts out of the machine, we had to free up the front and rear differentials and move them forward and backward respectively. So, we had this part
in our hands and still didn't notice it. Damn. I wasn't' too pleased with myself over that.
But, I'd taken enough of PJ's time and he had lots to do before heading out of town so we put it back together and I headed home. I now knew how to get everything in the rear-end apart so I knew exactly what I would be doing this week.
I called Ingles yesterday and sure enough, they had a universal. After picking that up I got to work and believe it or not I was able to finish it last night. Not all that difficult, just a very time consuming process. Here are a few pix.
Here is the rear-end after I removed the rear caliper.
The drive-shaft, the bad universal is at the top of the image (the rear most part of the assembly). The new universal and snap-rings are in the package.
New universal installed and everything reassembled.
Yes, PJ. I cleaned and lubed everything and used Blue Loctite where appropriate. :-)
This rear universal going bad was completely avoidable. Both universals on the rear shaft assembly have grease zerks. All I had to do was grease them more often. You can bet they'll get much more attention going forward. The best part of all this is that I got the chance to inspect everything and found that all the rest of the hardware is in top shape. Although, there may be a rear diff seal replacement in the future. Especially since I now know how easy it is to get the rear diff out.
So that's it. Now farmgirl can ride SNIRT! She's very happy about that.
