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What's on your Work Bench?

Nothing near as ambitious at Eric's project, but my horn has been disconnected for about 3 years. So took the wheel off and basically the steel cup, flex plate and inside of the steering wheel housing basically had so much corrosion/rust from 42 years of life that they were frozen and wouldn't move. Took a brass wire wheel to all of them yesterday. Going to put it back together after lunch and see if this fixes the issue. I do need to replace the turn signal switch but that is waiting till we get back from a trip with in early in Sept...
 
Dr Field and Brush mower rear axle assembly.

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I Was being pretty rough with it, differential locked, tires hopping, while clearing off the cliff. I should have checked when I heard the tapping sound, but kept hammering down. The 6 bolts that hold the differential assembly together loosened, some of them backed out, broke the heads off of two of the six bolts and wiped out the drive chain tensioner idler pulleys.

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You can see the gap where the two halves of the differential meet due to broken bolts.

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Taking the remaining bolts out, disassembly and inspecting the differential gears, all good.

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The remaining whole bolts, bent bolt, and bolt remnants.

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Three sheared off bolts.

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No thread locker, and since they loosened before they snapped, I was able to unthread the broken bits out easily with a flat screw driver.

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Quick picture of the differential lock part.

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Dr only offers the entire axle assembly, not individual parts.

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Both axle shafts, the differential, and all of this assemblies parts are fine, except for the broken bolts. One of the wheel bearings feels a little rough. I would like to replace both axle bearings while I have it tore down.

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Of course, no part numbers on this made in China bearing. I believe this is what is refered to as a "Y" bearing. Need to take some measurements and see if I can find this bearing online, or go to a bearing supply house.

New bolts and idler pulleys ordered, just need two new axle bearings and this bad boy will be back up and running!!
 
bigwalton said:
Well, finally making progress on the Postal rewire before I can add the stroker and Terminator X… got the under dash harness out to compare to the American Autowire…

This is an “update” harness, NOT a stock replacement. There are a number of things they didn’t include (factory AC, ignition, tach, etc) assuming that this is going on a Jeep with upgrades over stock and adding things (electric fuel pump, multiple accessory circuits, relays for factory fogs and low/high beams, power feed to rear body for a power outlet, switched lights in the rear, third brake light feed, etc)

OEM with two or three distinct branches, depending how you look at it. They didn’t mirror the firewall in these, so the fuse block is lower and more centered right at the end of the heater box, basically.

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New with everything running one direction.
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I need to spend more time with it before I dig in but this will need to be completely re-loomed and there will be some lengthening needed. Thus far definitely the connector for the rear body harness.

That’s in addition to pulling the various feeds to my Speedhut gauges, pulling out a pile of wiring I don’t need and repurposing things I can use differently than intended. For example there’s the factory fog light switch circuit and American Autowire chose to add a relay for that (and the high and low headlight circuits). So I can pull that switch trigger wiring to one of my switches and repurpose that so it’s fused off the fuse block and eliminate one of my own relay setups.

That will be in addition to pulling out the headlight relay setup I built myself.

I am LOVING the thinking behind this harness, but I have a ton of planning and work before this can go back in.

(Going to start a thread on this part alone as it's going to be worth detailing as it's a fairly new kit.)
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Couldn’t help but think of you when I saw this…IMG_1069.jpeg
 
Forklift mechanic!!!

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The little drip from the steering cylinder/double ended ram became a gusher. Decided to pull the cylinder out myself because I have nothing left to do at work. Will take it to a hydraulic shop and let them rebuild the cylinder. Looks like two hydraulic lines and four bolts and the cylinder should be free. Looks heavy. Most of these pictures are for me so I can put it all back together. Will clean and repack wheel bearings while I'm in here. Will take longer to clean everything then repair. The old grease on the ball joints looks like anti-sieze? Those little back tires are super heavy, probably 250 plus pounds!!! The whole machine weighs 10k pounds.
 
spankrjs said:
Forklift mechanic!!!

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The little drip from the steering cylinder/double ended ram became a gusher. Decided to pull the cylinder out myself because I have nothing left to do at work. Will take it to a hydraulic shop and let them rebuild the cylinder. Looks like two hydraulic lines and four bolts and the cylinder should be free. Looks heavy. Most of these pictures are for me so I can put it all back together. Will clean and repack wheel bearings while I'm in here. Will take longer to clean everything then repair. The old grease on the ball joints looks like anti-sieze? Those little back tires are super heavy, probably 250 plus pounds!!! The whole machine weighs 10k pounds.
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Nothing light on a forklift(operator is probably the lightest part)Even the very short mast tilt cylinders and deceiving heavy.
 
barrys said:
Nothing light on a forklift(operator is probably the lightest part)Even the very short mast tilt cylinders and deceiving heavy.
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Yeah we had both a propane and a battery (lead acid) powered fork lift, the battery powered one could out lift the propane due to the added battery weight.
 
FLCJ8 said:
Yeah we had both a propane and a battery (lead acid) powered fork lift, the battery powered one could out lift the propane due to the added battery weight.
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We have 9 shop units and 3 truck mounted ones at my job(1 hangs on my truck) I won't miss working on them like I did at my last job occasionally.
 
Cylinder out.

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Dropped it off at a local hydraulic shop for a reseal/rebuild. Now the fun part, cleaning all of this stuff up!!

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The tire/wheel assemblies are also the hubs. Need to clean all the old grease out. Each one of those assemblies must weigh 2-300 pounds!!
 
FLCJ8 said:
Two weeks...
they could be without you AND a working forklift :evil:
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:ROFLMAO:

It's an amicable separation. They closed the company two years ago. I have been helping them sell buildings/property/heavy equipment, doing handy man projects at the various properties, moving stuff around, cleaning up, and doing warranty work. They are down to one building, I only need about two hours to finish the warranty work once the painter finishes up, so basically worked my way out of a job. It's been nice working with my hands/tools, soon I will be back to project management with a new company, and all the headaches that involves.
 
Greased up these two hidden perks, easier without the steering cylinder in the way.

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Flushed out all the old crap grease from the king pin bushings on each side, top and bottom.

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Steering cylinder installed, hydraulic lines attached, steering linkage on each side installed and greased up.

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Fired it up, slowly turned the wheel side to side for a few minutes to bleed it out, so far no leaks. Wrapped the spindles in plastic bags to protect them from dust over the weekend, new piece of cardboard underneath to check for leaks. Should be able to repacked the wheel bearings and install the wheels Monday and wrap this little job up!!

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No pictures, but a new turn signal switch so the folks following me will see both stop lights! 😉. Also hopefully have the right front parking like fixed and the horn works now too. Only need to figure out why the steering lock is intermittently trying to lock when I don’t want it to…. 🤔🤔🤔
 
TexasAg77 said:
No pictures, but a new turn signal switch so the folks following me will see both stop lights! 😉. Also hopefully have the right front parking like fixed and the horn works now too. Only need to figure out why the steering lock is intermittently trying to lock when I don’t want it to…. 🤔🤔🤔
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It's an AMC product..............?
 
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