The faint glow I saw in the distance has now turned into a dim light at the end of a tunnel. I got my modified bushing puller welded today. I got the second bushing pulled. That sucker was a whole LOT tighter than the first one. I used a large 1/2" drive socket wrench, with about a 16" handle and could not turn that screw. Had to put a 2' piece of pipe over it to get enough leverage to turn it and still had to put everything in it I had. But, it DID come out! Then, for some reason, I decided to look down into the torque tube, and I'm glad I did. The bronze/copper insert was lying back inside the tube, behind that bushing. I didn't know what it was when I saw it back in there, and it wasn't until I fished it out that I could tell what it was. If I'd driven that okie bushing back onto it, I imagine it would have crushed it and destroyed the okie oil seal at the same time. I would really like to hear the story from the guy who drove that bushing down that tube.
Now, on to my next problem...installing my okie bushing. I got it started and it began getting tighter and tighter, which I fully expected. But, as long as I kept pounding it with a 5 lb. hammer it slowly slid back into the tube. That is, until it got to within 1/4" and then it stopped. No matter how hard I pounded, it would not budge. Thinking it was actually moving, but just slowly, I marked it, and kept beating on it. I even got a 10 lb. sledge up into my cab and swung it as hard as I could in such limited space. It won't move. I'm thinking it shouldn't be a problem because there seems to be plenty of room to still connect my trunnion up to the u-joint, and there is at least 2-3" of fore and aft movement allowed for that trunnion to slide on the propeller shaft. And, the way that system is designed, I can't see where that tube/shaft is going to be moving for and aft anyway very far anyway.
Before I installed the okie, I checked how far back the rear bushing/seal was and compared that to the length of my okie. It was a little farther back than my okie will reach, so I know that rear bushing is not my problem.
You can see in one photo my extended bushing puller along with everything that came out of the front of that torque tube. The second photo shows how far that okie bushing is sticking out of the torque tube.
So, do you think that 1/4" protusion will be okay? I sure hope so because it won't go any farther.
