Yesterday was an exercise in making the basement of the house stink by painting the driveshafts. not worthy of photos.
They are now sitting on the floor next to the completed transfer case. 4 of the 6 bearings and races needed replacing along with all input/output seals and speedi-sleeves on the yokes. The previous owners had a love of RTV sealant and used it in place of all gaskets when they put the case together. The lack of gaskets made most bearing adjustments too tight, the front drive hardly turned. I now understand why the manual advises to keep the shims for each cap together as a starting point for adjustments. It makes life much easier if you work from a "too thick" shim pack to "just right" rather than the other way round - I didn't understand how much easier until after doing the first adjustment the hard way. Also after the fact, read the manual for the C60X and realized they had a different (better?) procedure - rather than trial and error they tell you to place the adjustment cap onto the shaft and bearing (no shims) and measure the gap between the cap and the housing. Also, it is surprising the difference in feel having the seals rubbing on the shafts makes. The manual is right that bearing adjustments should be done without seals in place to be able to feel for drag and free play.
One of today's tasks was working on repairing my hedge trimmer. It isn't needed right now but on the last hedge for the year (had to finish with an electric trimmer - don't want to do any more of that) it sheared the driveshaft at a weld just after the centrifugal clutch. The stub of the shaft remained threaded into the clutch drum located down a well in the housing that made gripping the stub next to impossible. I used our tested technique of welding a nut on to provide a grip. I was nervous about the heat from the weld cooking the seal and lube in the bearing so had an air line ready to speed the cooling after welding. Once the nut was welded and cooled, it was a fairly simple matter to jam the clutch drum in the housing and put a socket on the nut to back out the nut and stub. The same technique has worked on multiple bolts sheared flush (including throttle bellcrank studs corroded/frozen into the block). Now to buy a new driveshaft and put it in place.
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