Awwe Crap!

[JM 35 Sedan]

Another wakeup call, if you will.......before you run out and buy those drum retainers, and hastily bolt them in place, with a sigh of relief, it might be a good idea to pull those drums first, and check the axles for stress cracks/fractures, etc., condition of key ways and keys, condition of taper on axles, and drum hubs, and condition of threads on axles and axle nuts. Then if all looks good in those areas, clean and reseat those tapers using some laping compound as ford38v8 mentioned in one of his recent posts. Give those tapers a final cleaning, DO NOT put any type of lube on those clean dry tapers, put good keys in their proper location, reinstall the drums, and torque the axle nuts to the correct specification after making damn sure you have axle nuts of the correct material and heat treat hardness.

ps....I am sure some who read this, who normally like to take shortcuts, and do things quickly, will probably think this is unnecessary, or does not apply to them.

[Mart]

Yup, keep those nuts tight, boys. Just because they were tight when you fitted them does not mean they have remained tight. Get em tight and check and recheck on a regular basis. Personally I've stopped using castellated nuts and splitpins and use a Philidas brand locking nut. I paint mark them so I can monitor that they have not backed off. If when you go to them and retighten, if they turn a bit you don't know if it is because everything has settled and they can go a bit tighter or if they have backed off. By paint marking you can be sure they have not backed off.
I don't expect anyone else to do this, and don't want to argue the toss on it, it's just what I do.

Mart.

[JM 35 Sedan]

Originally Posted by Capt Kirk

I agree 100%. The rear end is freed up and dropped down...now time to deal with the front of the torque tube.

Capt, a suggestion on the above.....just drop that rear assembly down far enough to allow the top of rear spring to clear the rear cross member. Remove the U joint coupling halves, and begin bringing the rear back and from under the car. If you have the rear too low before you start bringing it back, the bell shaped part at the front of the torque tube will hang up at the beginning of the sheetmetal tunnel. I usually insert a separate piece of scrap sheetmetal between that bell and the beginning of the tunnel to act as a shoehorn as that bell starts back into the tunnel. I also use some wood shims between the floor and the frame X rails (after loosening several bolts on each side of the floor that fasten to the x rails) to slightly raise that tunnel area. This all helps that torque tube to come back and through that tunnel. Just my way of doing things.

[Capt Kirk]

Is this a good stopping point for a beer?

[Capt Kirk]

OK, now it is!

[JSeery]

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Looking good! You are really getting after it.

[JM 35 Sedan]

You da man Capt. Have a cold one!

[Capt Kirk]

I'm going to have a beer and try to remember how I got that spring compressed enough to get it mounted to the axle. Kind of a catch 22...I may have forgot because of the beers since them. Hmmmm.

[JM 35 Sedan]

CAUTION....be carefull taking that spring off. I have some pictures on how I do that, that I think show a couple of good safe ways of doing it. I can send them to you if you are interested in seeing them

[Capt Kirk]

Originally Posted by JM 35 Sedan

CAUTION....be carefull taking that spring off. I have some pictures on how I do that, that I think show a couple of good safe ways of doing it. I can send them to you if you are interested in seeing them

Absolutely!! Can you post them on this thread? I think it would be good for future reference.

[JM 35 Sedan]

I could do that Capt, but these pictures are amoung maybe close to 100 pictures that I took of every step of recently rebuilding the rear of my 35 fordor avatar. I am in the process of doing a complete article on this subject describing each step of the process along with pictures on each step. Who knows when I will actually finish this article in the form I feel it would be good enough to publish. So, until then I do not want to make any of these pictures available to the public, anticipating they would be copied an shown around the internet. I would be happy to send them to you personally though, knowing and trusting you well enough from past dealings, if you would pm me your email address.

[Capt Kirk]

JM...PM sent.

I got the rear end drug into the garage but I can't lift it onto the table and I'm not gearing up the cherry picker for this. I need to wait till the boy gets home to give me a hand. Hmmm...what to do in the mean time...there's a beer over there...

[Capt Kirk]

Just remembered I have a porta-power out there...I think I'll give that a try.

[Capt Kirk]

Porta power worked like a dream!! I didn't have it when I put the car together. I've got pics and will post as soon as I can get them off my phone.

[Capt Kirk]

Took longer to set the tool up than it did to get the spring off

[Capt Kirk]

Overall view. Found a couple other problems that I'm going to have to deal with before putting it back together.

[JSeery]

You may not have the stuff laying around to do it, but I use something like jackstands or blocks. I pick up one side, block it up and then the other side and so on. By lifting it just a little at a time and only one side I can eventually get about anything where I want it.

And remember to pay attention to the gaskets on ether side of the center section! You need to know the thickness and the side they came off of. I would check them and write in on the center section with a marker as soon as it comes apart.

You are really making progress!!!

[Mart]

Just throwing this out there, but remember, if you want to minimise the teardown, just pull the left side casing and radius arm. You can make the repair quite simply from the one side, but it must be the left side. If the gaskets come off cleanly, they can be reused with a thin smear of sealant.

Just pointing out that you don't need to do a full rebuild if the time isn't right. If you want to do that, fair enough, and it's what many would want, but you don't have to if you don't want to.

Mart.

[Capt Kirk]

Progress report. I've got it completely stripped apart and on the table. Carrier bearings and races look great. I pulled the left side and I didn't see a gasket on either face...I'll look closer later but a gasket certainly wasn't obvious. The other side (Mart, I'm doing a full rebuild...I don't want to do this again) had a thin gasket which isn't any good but I will measure it. Has anybody ever heard of no gasket on one side?
You guys will know more about what this means than I do but the overall axle length is 32 7/8" and it has 16 teeth. I haven't cleaned the grease off completely but the gears and bearings I've seen so far look good. I'll post some more pics in a minute.

[Capt Kirk]

It's all apart