Well, since I announced my retirement from the working world, all hell has broken loose and has consumed both my time and spirit. Haven't really been motivated to do anything of late. Plus it is spring time, and I seem to spend every moment whilst at home trying to catch up on the yard work. Everything should stop growing here shortly as it will be 100 degrees tomorrow. Should look like scorched earth hear shortly.
Anyhoo, I finally was motivated enough today to sandblast my axle housings for the Carryall project. Tried to squeeze it in early before it was too hot. This is the rear housing:
Lots of cleanup of the housings. Used a long rod to push paper towels through the axle housings to get the old oil residue out:
Whist pulling the gear cover and pumpkin, most of the studs came out, so had to clean everything and then re-install using Loctite. Very time consuming and an inordinate amount of beer disappeared during the endeavor:
This is the front axle housing after it was blasted. Needs to be disassembled and cleaned up. The pumpkin on this one is in need or repair. I have another that I will use in this housing. Hope to someday figure out how to rebuild the gears. Not an easy task I have heard:
I had some NOS axle housing gaskets that I bought some time ago for display. Thought I would try on out. Well, lets just say that NOS is not the way to go for gaskets. They basically disintegrated as I tried to install. I'll need to find some "fresh" ones that will actually work:
So nice to have the tractor to move these things around. Would take three times as long to figure out how to move these previous to the tractor factor:
The Carryall body is still just hanging out waiting for some love:
And , of course, Ralph is hanging out wondering why it is taking me so long to get motivated: