Adk46

One down, one to go. It's back in the car, but I'm off to Sears to get a 1/2" drive allen socket set since my 3/8" drive torquer won't go to 60 ft-lbs.

To paraphrase Young Frankenstein, the graveyard scene:

"This is awful. Stubborn axle nuts. Tough cap screws. Rusty muffler bolts. Jammed up splines."

"Could be worse."

"How could it possibly be worse?"

"Could be gobs of black grease."

NoVector

Congrats. Your picture kind of reminded me of this.


No doubt about it, it's a messy, crappy job. I'm pretty sure next time I'll send mine to Raxles.

Adk46

Cover the monkey with grease, and it would be perfect.

For fellow newbies, some images. To get the axles out on my '87, I undid both couplings near the rear muffler (bolts broke, muffler must be tied up). Also the hangers at the rear of the middle (?) mufflers. Bite the bullet and do this before undoing the six inner bolts of each axle. I used a piece of pipe on a regular allen wrench to break these loose (and "break" is the right word here).



This is how I rinsed out the outer joint, the one with the torn boot - pretty gritty to start with. I suspended the inner end from the garage door rail. The best action came from plugging the lower hole in the axle, filling the joint with solvent, and working the two parts of the axle like a plunger. I started with used solvent from the other axle, and will finish with fresh solvent.



I took a peek midway through the cleaning, and saw shiny *****. I may yet find some degradation, but it is remarkable how resilient these joints are.



I'll next go after the other end. I know now that the inner joint can be disassembled while on the shaft, and that it's better to do it on purpose than by accident. I think the trick is that the ***** come out (and go back in) from the side facing outside (the axle end side).

Adk46

Finished the boot job this morning. The final act was extending the 3/4" drive breaker bar to 24 inches, setting it on the axle nuts, and standing on it.

MFranke

I think this is the smart way and less expensive. Get the little torch from HF and some butane all less than $20.

Then use it for all your other stuck bolts and nuts. The little blue wrench works wonders.

Adk46

Metallurgists know things that make them afraid of torches. For example, the effect of tempering temperature on hardness and impact resistance. Careful with that torch, Eugene!

(I doubt a small butane torch will do anything bad.)

MFranke

Yeah. No need to make anything glow. Just hot enough to loosen and get the oil in there.