so in Rochester, my passtime is rolling around under the truck in a
parking lot. I drag tom's truck from NY back to its home, and then
spend time in MN... doing what? working on the truck, of course!
oy....
so the main thing I was planning to take care of was the sieve under my
truck, otherwise known as a front differential: my right axle seal and
pinion oil seals were leaking. I pulled apart the right side of the
axle, which was a bit of a pain, but not too bad. that seal came out
and went in pretty smoothly, and reassembly went smoothly, too.
Luckily, the bearing seemed in good shape. I pulled apart the front
ujoint in preparation to do the pinion seal, but found I have no hope
of getting that front yoke off the pinion shaft without a pit or a
hoist. I simply don't have the leverage on that big nut while laying
on the floor. so I still have one of three holes leaking....
of course things couldn't be that simple. I had to find more
problems....
I think I'd mentioned here on the list that my brake pads looked as
through they were disintegrating. when I pulled off the right side's,
I certainly found disintegrating brakes. I've got pictures to post
when I get back on broadband. it turns out both inner pads were
literally flaking apart, and probably half gone (surface area-wise).
New front brake pads were certainly in order. All of the old parts
came apart decently, but the first set of new pads I picked up were
wrong: the outers didn't have the keeper springs on their back sides.
when I went back to the parts store to swap them out, I found that
these were one of a few that are in their computer wrong. too bad all
their parts counter guys don't know that...
'take two' had the right pads on hand, and the right side of the truck
went back together wonderfully. the left side actually had to be
pounded onto the rotor, though. there was no clearance at all, no
matter how tightly I tried to clamp the inner shoe to the caliper (if I
retracted the piston, it would walk back out a bit before I could get
the pads on, and didn't provide any more clearance than what I did...).
after it was back together, a test drive to seat the pads to the
rotors saw a lot of heat and a bit of smoke from both sides (oops), but
they now seem to be behaving properly and my braking feels vastly
improved (though of course I have yet to stomp on them). they seem not
to be dragging anymore, since after more driving they weren't at all
hot, which is a Good Thing.
I found later that my brake fluid resivour had actually overflowed, and
is now full of very, very rusty fluid. I must have worked quite a bit
back up from the front wheel cylinders. While I was pulling the extra
fluid out of there, I splattered some on my left front fender, but I
don't seem to have done any damage, since I washed it off very well
almost immediately.
I also already knew that I had a split boot on my 8-month-old lower
left ball joint, and I looked into taking care of that.... I couldn't
even get the ball joint's stud broken loose from the lower control arm,
much less get the steering knuckle separated from the lower control arm
in order to slip a new boot on =( I guess I'll keep greasing it until
it fails and let the pros deal with it when the time comes. (though I
just realized that I never tried getting my two jaw puller on there.
damn....)
finally, I figured out where the wear on my a/c condenser lines was
coming from: the bumper. not only were the lower right frame broken
and upper left mount snapped off, but both lower mounts seem to be
snapped off, which allowed the entire unit to swing forward quite a
ways. I can't deal with those without taking the bumper off, and I
don't know if I'd find something fixable after doing that (those who
helped out with my front hooks at the BBQ know why I want to avoid
pulling my front bumper). I wire tied the bottom left of the condenser
back towards the radiator where it belongs, so hopefully it will last
until I have the scratch for a winch and bumper, at which time I'll
probably end up replacing the whole condenser, since I've got a few
damaged vanes on the bottom, the very worn condensate lines and the
already-patched but still broken plastic frame.
tomorrow I still have a 180вк thermostat to put in, which shouldn't take
too long, and I think I'll put the puller on that ball joint stud and
see if might have a chance of saving that joint.
-- Michael Maskalans '98 Dakota SLT CC 4x4 318 details here: <http://mike.tepidcola.com/dak.html> mobile.612.618.4652 campus.585.274.2246 fax.954.697.0487
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