Yesterday afternoon I ventured out into the man cave to analyze my rear hub situation. As recommended I retrieved one of the rear brake drums and inserted the hubs it check trueness. It turns out one of the hubs was distorted (I double checked the trueness but mounting the hub on one of the axles and spinning it) when it was pressed from the axle. The hub is now junk!! I also discovered a serious flaw on one of the axles..where the axle tube seal rides there is a noticeable "groove". This is probable cause why oil migrated past and fouled the rear brake shoes... I am not sure why I didn't see this flaw before I took the axle to have the hub pressed off? I also noted that the other axle which housed the difficult hub to remove is seriously "blued" from being heated. I am not sure I am comfortable utilizing it in the rebuild? I have an e-mail out to my sports car source to get their opinion?? It turns out my attempts to utilize a local shop and save some money has turned out to be misguided!!
Phase 2 of the analyzes had me wandering through the snow and wrestling the second differential out of it's resting place by my garden shed, through my backyard gate and down the front sidewalk and up my front driveway. I ended up having to stop the migration and move my truck so I could maneuver the differential (which had wheels mounted) through the garage door. Once inside the garage I let the rear end sit for a couple of hours to let some of the ice to melt. Late in the afternoon I tackled the removal of the axles...the bearings spin freely with no binding and the seal surfaces look reasonable on first pass. I am still contemplating not having the hubs pressed off and installing the axles "as is" ...I cleaned up the axles and did a first pass on cleaning up the flanges and hubs. I drained the very slow moving differential oil from the spare rear end. Today I am going to button up the spare rear end by placing plastic at the end of the tubes and temporarily placing the flanges back on-then move it back into storage.....this will protect the internals from contamination ...
During my moving around in the garage I accidently knocked one of the front hubs off my body stand ( in retrospect they shouldn't have been sitting there) which in turn crashed down on the top of the powder coated frame nicking it ( a very small nick but a nick nevertheless)...I berated myself for a few minutes because the whole incident could have been easily avoided...with some care and attention applied on my part.....another learning experience. I moved both hubs on the carpeted surface on the garage floor. They are now out of the way.
While all this was happening I really had to fight bouts of feeling discouraged-the first time I have felt this emotion in a long time (related to the rebuild)... I realize I have to be patient and tenacious and move forward. I also have to figure out how to approach the suspension shop to inform them of the problem??? I am not sure how this issue is going to be resolved. I guess some research on the cost of replacement hubs is required???
Fortunately there is a wealth of TR3 support available and I told myself last night any problem can be resolved-sometimes all it takes is money??
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