After Rob left...
...Bob and I had a second go at installing the flexible coupler for his winch drive. We now have more respect for the poor fellows who had to do the job under a truck in the mud and rain. The manual that is otherwise so valuable is a little optomistic when it comes to installing the flexible couping between transfer case and winch. The removal is decribed roughly as unbolt and take the joint out as an assembly, with installation being "reverse the removal process". We should have known better given the effort required to remove the joint a few months back. We did try assembling the joint and wiggling it into place. Not even close to fitting. Rob had the idea to compress the joint using threaded rod through holes the makers had thoughtfully provided. The joint did compress surprisingly well given the stiffening of the rubber over the years, but was still far from fitting into place. so we took it apart again and started over. The parts that mount to the transmission and transfer case were installed and tightened (after putting the brake band for the winch into place) followed by the discs containing the rubbers and finally the metal center segment. The process was straightforward after we figured out what order to do things in and improvised more tooling. Bob can decide whether the tooling aspect is a trade secret or not (after all it was his tool that was used). Once the coupler was insalled, we paused to appreciate our efforts and moved on to the shaft mount parking brake. I'm sure a purists will chime in that C15A s were not equipped with either winches or driveshaft parking brakes, but that is the way Bob's truck was found and that is how it's going back together. The completed installation, less linkages looks like this:
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