metaruss

Last night/this morning I finally fixed a few pressing issues.  One was the boot on the driver’s inner CV joint had chewed through itself a while ago and I’ve been meaning to put a new one one there for some time.  I discovered that the Driveshaft Shop Level 3 axles have the tripods welded to the shafts, so they have to be taken apart from the outer CV end.  Also, the inner joints have some kind of fiber reinforced plastic cap that seems to be there to keep the tripod in the tulip housing.  The problem is the boot seals to the cap and the cap seals to the tulip with a rubber seal.  On the other axle, grease is coming out between the cap and the tulip, so I am going to have to deal with that at some point..

The big project was replacing the shift fork pads on the 1-2 and 3-4 forks.  I’ve been limping 3rd gear along for over a year now, as I cheezed it pretty bad on a hard shift one day but it was still usable.  A week or so ago I did the same to 2nd gear, rendering it useless.  I hoped it was just the pads and so I bought some new ones.  Thankfully, that’s all it was.  The trans looked clean inside, though the sprags for 3rd and especially for 2nd gear are pretty chewed up.  It shifts great now, so I am not going to worry about it.

Finally, both of the outer tie rod ends are so sloppy that they have about 1/2″ of play now.  They are only a few years old, so no more Moog suspension parts for me.  I got the more expensive ones from NAPA (Spicer I think).  Same brand as the new ball joints that replaced the failed Moog joints and are holding up well.