Donny
Well-Known Member
- Local time
- 3:36 PM
- Joined
- Aug 28, 2009
- Messages
- 3,206
- Reaction score
- 539
- Location
- North East San Antonio TX
If you got rust, plan on three times as long and three times as much money to fix/repair/replace! As many of you know, I am up to my arm pits in a 1993 Dodge W250 restoration. I told the owner lets put new brake hoses on for general maintenance as they are 20 yrs old, he said sure, go ahead. Well, in attempting to turn out the brake lines from the hoses, every brake line was rusted shut, corroded and fused as one. Nothing to do but keep turning till the brake line breaks off, and, replacing all brake lines too! Ok, no problem, new brake lines bend easily into place, got that fire put out! Now, the rear brake hose has an axle breather bolt that doubles as vent tube for the Dana 70 rear end. That sucker was FUSED to the axle housing. I tried the 9/16 wrench to turn it out, rounded off the metal, then Vise Grips, ripped it apart. Next cut it flat off, run a easy out in there, yeah, this will work! Nope, broke 2 easy outs! I just kept pushing progressive force into it after soaking it with PB blast (good stuff). Now, I am certain I have shavings IN the axle. Got the easy outs out (what was left of them). Decided I have to check it out, and clean it out. I pulled the axle out, shone a light in there, and, sure enough, a pile of shavings! Off comes the differential cover to see if they have migrated. Nope.
So, right now, I have shavings in there, and a magnetic pointer works, but, I am not 100% confident I will get ALL of them out. I'm looking at the ring gear and such, wondering WTF, why me! I am certain I will have to pull this assembly out, clean it out, spray the tubes out. So, I took off the drum, brake shoes, backing plate, and, frigging rust was all inside too! The shoes were cracked and worn out to the rivets. So, likely new drums for this baby as this one drum was chipped, and the owner wants the integrity back, so, new ones are in order. But, the frigging hub, wow, I've never tore into a HD truck before like this, the inner seal reflects its a 9,000 lb axle according to the part number, and the cross reference at O'Reilly's. See where this all is going? RUST SUCKS! I have to have his brakes fully operational and free of debris, rust etc. The owner has given me the go-ahead to do this work, he knows its more time and money, but, he knows its good money spent! This sort of stuff is where all my time goes! Oh yeah, the axle breather hole, I got it cleaned out, re-ran threads, but, the threads were too open, and not as tight as I'd like, so, I welded the hole up, drilled a new one about 1cm away, kept going up to (I think) 24/64 drill bit, then ran a 7/16 20 tap in, the new nipple hose bolt (which I ordered from Dodge, and it came from an old dealership in Detroit) went right it, nice and tight too! Did I say RUST SUCKS!!!????
So, right now, I have shavings in there, and a magnetic pointer works, but, I am not 100% confident I will get ALL of them out. I'm looking at the ring gear and such, wondering WTF, why me! I am certain I will have to pull this assembly out, clean it out, spray the tubes out. So, I took off the drum, brake shoes, backing plate, and, frigging rust was all inside too! The shoes were cracked and worn out to the rivets. So, likely new drums for this baby as this one drum was chipped, and the owner wants the integrity back, so, new ones are in order. But, the frigging hub, wow, I've never tore into a HD truck before like this, the inner seal reflects its a 9,000 lb axle according to the part number, and the cross reference at O'Reilly's. See where this all is going? RUST SUCKS! I have to have his brakes fully operational and free of debris, rust etc. The owner has given me the go-ahead to do this work, he knows its more time and money, but, he knows its good money spent! This sort of stuff is where all my time goes! Oh yeah, the axle breather hole, I got it cleaned out, re-ran threads, but, the threads were too open, and not as tight as I'd like, so, I welded the hole up, drilled a new one about 1cm away, kept going up to (I think) 24/64 drill bit, then ran a 7/16 20 tap in, the new nipple hose bolt (which I ordered from Dodge, and it came from an old dealership in Detroit) went right it, nice and tight too! Did I say RUST SUCKS!!!????
