Colinb17's kinda sorta build thread - now with 4-link and long travel

Thank you little rusty on the welder, since I haven't welded since leaving Houston, but i'm pleased with how it turned out.

we just hit the big three of high priced parts induesties: racing, marine, and industrial

Ugh, for some reason that happens about every 2 years to my pictures. thanks for the heads up.

maybe i'll finally put my trail raisin badge on tomorrow. Alexi is still out of town for her bachelorette party, so I finally get some driveway time.

speaking of her being away, I think my mind goes into cruise control when she leaves. I left the house at noon to go get a haircut. came back an hour later with the below garage goodies. 5 0'clock rolls around, and I realized that I never actually got my hair cut
curious what new tools i'll come home from tomorrow's haircut with...

 

You do know I have a 33" wide vinyl cutter now, right? I could cut you a huge one of these with "Trail" across the top.

 

after you go above about a foot wide, i'm hard pressed to find that much unharmed sheet metal. gotta live the small sticker life now

 

That's the point. Lay the sticker over the wrinkle.

 

After 8.5 years, I think the truck finally has a name. I can't remember who started it, so I'm just going to blame homer for it

 

Lolz

 

question for yall.

trying to remove the front half of my drive shaft so I can replace the carrier bearing, but I can't get the 4 nuts off at the flange connecting the shaft to the transfer case. it's a 14mm nut. I've spread the open end or a 14mm wrench, and can't get it to budge using the closed end. not really enough room to properly swing a hammer at the wrench or get a bar on it for more leverage. 1/2'' drive sockets and swivels are too large and don't physically fit onto the nut because they hit the u-joint components.

thinking my best option at this point is to use a 3/8'' drive 14mm socket with a swivel and socket extender, I believe that will get me far enough from everything that I can toss an adapter on it and fire up the impact. I'm ok if I blow through a socket or two doing so, I just want to get these damn nuts broken loose.

been drenching the nuts in penetrating oil every day for a week and a half, and I tried hitting it with the torch yesterday. still no dice.

any advice

 

What kind of penetrating fluid are you using. If it's pb later you might as well put water on it. There is always the mix of atf and something else (I think acetone ) that folks swear by. I'm just grasping at straws though.

 

started with pb because that's what I had. switched to the new penetrant from wd40 that I'd heard some folks hear and there saying they've liked (mostly bike folks where they are dealing with steel to aluminum threaded connections). I do have some leftover tranny fluid from my drain and fill a few months ago. I can't remember what you mix with either, but i'll give it a shot tonight.

 

I believe it's 50/50 ATF and acetone.

 

Pipe wrench? Drill the bolts out?

Maybe if you have enough room, place a jack underneath the socket or pipe wrench and use the jack to press against the wrench.

 

space it the issue here. if I could get a drill in there, I'd be able to get an impact on it (without the socket adapter contraption I described).

no way in hell a pipe wrench would fit either. it's so tight that depending on the nut's orientation, sometimes the open ended wrench will only fit one way. if you flip it to re-angle it, you hit flange.

 

All else fails the liquid wrench penetrating fluid is supposed to be the best otc product. Almost as good as the home brew.

 

I'm a huge fan of Kroll Penetrating Oil. I keep a case of it in handy for field work and it blows away everything else I've used. If it can work on 30-40 year old bolts, in Kroll I trust.

I'd be awfully wary of using acetone where heat is involved ...

 

Can you take a picture of what you're talking about please?

 

just checked out he MSDS on Kroll. stuff catches on fire at 124 degrees ordered a can on Amazon

the issue doesn't seem to be corrosion with these. there's no visible rust. I think they just sit right above the crossover pipe for my exhaust, so with the every day heating and cooling, they've become quite tight.

 

on site all day long, but i'll get one tonight.

 

I'm pretty sure we were able to get an impact on that front flange when I busted my driveshaft at Gilmer. We might have used a swivel though.

 

I think the key is a non-impact swivel and socket. both of my 1/2'' drive swivels are very robust impact rated. and my 1/2'' sockets are all deep well impacts. I'm gonna pick up some lower profile sockets and a non-impact swivel and see where that gets me.