A little update. Over the Christmas holiday, decided to get a lot of items done, both maintenance as well as a a few small modifications. The list of work was;
- Swap-out passenger CV as it was spitting grease from the boot
- Weld-on spindle gusstes
- Oil & filter change
- Change front & rear diffs
Pretty straight forward.
I start with the CV swap and sindle gussets. Disassemble the passenger side and remove the CV. Then, fit up the gusset, tack up and the remove spindle for welding. Install new OEM CV and continue to stich weld the gusset to spindle in order to not overheat and warp the spindle.
Since there is some waiting during the welding process, move over to disassemble of the other side and repeat, minus the CV swap, and assemble. During this, I now move to draining the rear diff fluid and then fill.
OK, now front is fully assembled, rear diff changed, skid plates removed and begin the oil change. This is pretty straigt forward. Get this buttoned and and on to the final task, front diff and the train derails at this point!
Get the 10 mm hex head socket and go to remove the drain plug and nothing, could not budge it. OK, sleeve the ratched for some added leverage. Still no movement. DAMN IT! I was putting so much force of the tools, they were flexing and still nothing except, wait for it...... completely stripping the bolt out so the allen would not grab anything.
So the serious cursing, pacing and thinking begins. I come up with the idea of getting a ball end allen, hoping I can get it to bind up and catch as well as apply some heat to the diff housing at the drain plug. Nope, that did not work, actually stipped it out worse. (Insert cursing rant here!).
Well, OK, I do have the welder out. Hmmmm, maybe i will go for it and sacrifice a tool and drain plug (both relatively inexpensive) and weld in the allen socket and give it hell. So, I go for it and put several tacks onto it as best as I can. Grab the ratchet again and, BAM, that came out fairly easy. WTF??! Well, drain the fuild and of course no place is open or has the drain plug in stock just before Christmas. To hell with it, I decide to cut of the socket part, files the edges smooth and put a little more weld on it so now I can remove with a box end wrench, install the bastard and fill with oil and re-install all of the skids.
And time for a beer. That was one hell of a day. I guess I should order a new drain plug one of these days.
