Project Pickle - front axle overhaul (part 17)

There were some subtle hints, almost indiscernible signs on that front axle... who am I kidding: There was red RTV on the free wheel hubs and one of the dials didn't move at all. 

 Just in order to get an idea of the state of affairs and because I would have to do it later anyway, should I have to dig in any further, I decided to drain the oil from the axle.

 DID I DECIDE TO DRAIN THE OIL FROM THE AXLE. 

 (In the end I welded a large nut to the filler plug in order to open it and then drained the oil.) The mere fact that the wheelbearing nut wasn't even finger tight probably surprises no one at this point?

Also RTV is clearly the solution, when you actually have leaky axle seals and the oil-grease mix is leaking out of the hubs. 

Be overjoyed for the lack of smell-o-vision. 

Despite the look, the UJ cleaned up nicely (and so did all the other mucky bits), but it was obvious that water got in and did its thing. 

 Surprisingly the kingpin-bearings didn't have any excessive play and could probably have been reused. 

Once cleaned things started to look decidedly better. 

 The wheel bearings were definitely shot.

... and because they were so shot, the axles wore out the actual axle support, which in turn caused the leaky axle seal.

Even though I am well aware that the axle housings will be rusty again at some point, a lick o' paint goes a long way in making stuff look nicer.

 

One of the weird fails prior to the overhaul was a failed star-washer, which probably caused the locknut to come loose at some point. Also the cheap aftermarket ones had a tang which was too wide and wouldn't properly engage with the cut out in the axle. 

In order to get the little circlip in, the axle stub has to be pulled out - turns out that's what the little M8-thread in the end is for.

And that's the front axle overhaul done. Probably the most difficult thing to do was to get the green rubber seals over the balls, which involved putting the wooden handle from my hammer through one of the kingpin bearing seats and levering it over with two small tire irons.  

Project Pickle - rear brake upgrade (part 16)

Admittedly the little elephant has by now covered nearing somewhere close to 2500km, so this is a bit of a look back really. Because the original rear brakes were horribly stuck I had to turn them out to even just turn the little cube with wheels into something that could be rolled around in the yard. With this being a very early SJ410 it did not have self adjusting drum brakes, a feature which actually is quite handy. The other thing about later SJ413 drums is that the actual cast brake ring is much, much beefier.

And as you don't need specific 1983 to 1984 brake shoes, buying consumables is a lot easier as well.

And mine came with the run-of-the-mill 67mm wheel cylinders as well. 

So in order to remove the axles a simple adapter for my slide hammer had to be improvised from some scrap metal. 

 

Pull off the old drums with the other tool I made waaaaay back and get the axles out / old anchor plates off. Except one of the bolts holding on the bearing retainer plate was completely rounded off. 

Now the thing is, the SJ410 had a little trick up its sleeve that later models didn't and it's shown exactly in the picture above. On these early models, the retainer plate is a separate piece, which allows you to remove the axle, without removing the rear brakes. 

 

Old bearings and retainer were on nice and tight (no chance to get it off with a 20T press) ... 

... and the bearing nicely and utterly f*cked. 

 

So in order to recreate this feature on the later SJ413 anchor plate, the center hole had to be bored out and would from here onwards be centered to the axle solely via the bolts.

Press new bearings onto the shaft (measure the overall height of the old bearings to find out if you need the additional spacer or not)

 Put the drum back on and repeat on the other side. 

 

In retrospect definitively one of the best modifications on the SJ410 I did so far. Consumables are cheaper and easy to get, the self adjusting drum brakes improve the overall performance a lot, which is especially helpful, if you have an early one like me, without a brake booster. Lastly being able to pull the axles without removing the brakes will undoubtedly come in handy down the line.