Forgot to hit send before I went to sleep, it seems
There's a thread in the dodge forum at pirate4x4.com....
<http://tinyurl.com/592f9> There are pictures there (nothing exciting
yet), so you might want to check it out.
Anyway, today was a day of conundrum and quandry.... a broken tap in
one of my brake brackets, discovery of a very badly leaking trans
output or tcase input seal (my new crossmember is now ATF impregnated),
and some good and some bad news about rim fitment.
As you probably recall I'm using hummer rims on full width axles.
This ought to keep my track relatively similar to stock since the
backspacing on humvee rims is insanely deep. This often leads to
fitment problems. In my case, I had two - one is simple, one is not
so. The caliper key keeper bolt needed about half it's head thickness
ground off to clear. I may run like that, but I'm going to see if I
can find an adequate 5/16-18 cap screw so I can be a little more
certain of having enough gripping surface to get it out after a few
winters on the truck. There's about 3/16" of hex height left on the
bolt head after clearancing and I'm afraid that could be too little if
it's sticky or rusted. The other problem is the caliper bleeder screw.
It's either 1/4" too tall or 3/16" too far outboard. I haven't quite
figured out what I'm going to do about that yet. I think my only
option is to cut off the nipple and bleed with a larger hose secured
either around or below the nut. Unless there's a shorter bleeder I
could get from something else...... hmmm.....
Bam! Same thread, Dakota's were 3/8" shorter. I had to clearance
the calipers a hair because the shorter bleed screws had their nut
about two threads too close to the business end and so wouldn't seal
properly. I happened to have a machine screw with the *perfect* OD to
plug the hole, so I stuck that down there, opened them up a bit with a
3/4" drill, cleaned them out, and now I'm in business.
Next major setback: bad axle ujoint. I have no idea how I/we missed
this, but the left side has one axis completely locked up. Bigger
annoyance: the caps are welded in the yokes. All the way around. I
hope they're shallow welds so I can just hit them with a grinder and be
in business. I might as well do the cross on the other side while I'm
at it too..... At least I know how to pull the hubs apart now.
The only other thing I accomplished was mocking up some axle side
bracketry out of cardboard.
-- Mike Maskalans <http://mike.tepidcola.com/dodge/> '84 RamCharger Daily Driver '98 Dakota under the knife mobile.612.618.4652 home.585.935.7129 fax.360.364.3930
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