With the nose panel & second seat not ready for return from sandblaster due to a machinery breakdown, I went back to work on the rear axle.
This weekend I got the drivers side hub off & removed all bearings from both sides. As with the mates side, the drivers side hub nuts showed signs of chisel marks in direction of loosening. Nuts are OK & needed only a filing down to remove burrs. Notice the 'dimples' on the stub in the 2nd photo? Only short axle end had these. Other end would have been done by someone else & I guess they had other ideas.
With the inner seals removed, it was easy to see why the insides of both hubs were dramatically fouled with oil/grease and dried dirt mixture. The seal shown here was the worst of the two. The extent of gunk buildup has been shown in a previous posting.
The short axle shaft has been damaged at some stage. It's not the damage that concerns me so much as how it happened. There was no metal pieces in the drained oil, at least none that fell out with the oil. May be best if I crack the two halves of the diff open to check the crown & pinion. Are the correct gaskets still available or will I need to make my own???
Hopefully, I can take the hubs to the blaster next weekend with some other pieces. Won't have to worry about sand in bearings, but will pack these areas heavilly with rags so no damage occurs.
The bearings have been checked, cleaned, given a coat of light oil (until i'm ready to repack) and mothballed on the shelf while I await new seals, gaskets and wheel cylinders from RockAuto in USA.
I've got 2 weeks off in mid October & hope to have the diff back together by then, so it can go for blasting and priming. There is a sodablasting Co local, BUT they charge $210.00 per hour. An old mate of mine reckons thats more than prostitutes charge........................I wonder how he knows that for sure.