4.10 gear swap continued,
Small diversion, axle breather was somewhat plugged with dried grease and the cap was loose, cleaned it, crimped it back on, some Permatex on the threads and reinstall. If it were thoroughly plugged the axle would probably leak somewhere when it warmed up.
PICTURE Made up a pair of studs to help line up the pumpkin when installing.
Set the pumpkin on a creeper and rolled it under the truck.
PICTURE Unfortunately no picture of the next part, I had my hands full. Laying on my back, feet forward and head under the axle I rolled the pumpkin on my chest and squirmed further under the axle. Looking through the axle housing back to front I picked the pumpkin up the last few inches and slid it on the guide suds (gasket already on the housing). Except it wouldn't slide on... I previously checked the fit of the pins on a bolt hole but not the exact two they needed to fit into, a mistake. A burr left by a lock washer was the trouble so set it back on my chest and moved the stud to another hole that it would fit into. Finally slid the pumpkin into place, the lineup pins if tested first actually work really well, easy.
PICTURE The shop manual instructs to put the bolts in and "tighten firmly", no torque specification that I could find. For lack of a torque spec. I look at the specs for my 53 series Detroit engine which list a general torque spec for all common thread sizes. 35 ft. lb. seems about right for 3/8-24.
PICTURE The rear cover has a thicker and soft gasket. As expected the cover was puckered a little at each bolt hole. With a hammer and a block of wood I unpuckered them, even a tiny bit past flat the other way. Because of the soft gasket and somewhat thin cover the bolts didn't need to be so tight, don't want to deform the cover at the bolt holes again, at least not by much. 20 ft. lb. seemed about right, 15 may have been just fine too.
This whole ordeal of cleaning and prepping, installing pumpkin, new transmission oil seal, refilling oil, installing driveshaft and backing the truck out of the garage took all day. I figured it might take half a day or so and thought I was nicely on schedule until looking at the clock to find out it was already 1:30...
Finally finished up about 5:30, quick shower and a test drive on the way only slightly late to a dinner invite.
Thankfully though the 4.10 gears are a very nice improvement over the slow 5.14 gears, made good time on the way to dinner, plenty of speed available. Much nicer to drive, didn't once find myself pressing in the clutch and searching for the next gear... to find it was already in high gear (a common occurrence with 5.14 gears).
Next post, hopefully just driving; it's time for plenty of that.
Grigg
