Three Aussie Mechanics cannot repair the axle seals- Unable to remove C clips in rear 8.8 Diff

[Scotsman01]

I guess you could have neighbours & passers-by giving cheery/helpful commentary I did a melodramatic clean-out of our junk-pit garage over NYs and am now setting it up like my teenage bedroom - posters, neatly colour-coded files, pretty baskets of polishes, oils and lamps Now for the colour-matched wall of ratchets & 'bits'. Gonna be a fun 2021 hobby...

You must be young enough to remember your teenage bedroom, mine was a barracks room in the RAAF, very spartan

 

[C420sailor]

But the most fun is had in those barracks rooms!

My first Christmas in Japan, just about all of the other officers went home. The Officers Club was empty, so my friend and I went to the ‘All Hands’ club. Wasn’t a great time. One of my sailors asked me if I wanted to party...I said yes...he took us back to the barracks...

After the initial ‘oh ****’ wore off their faces, the troops brought us into the fold...and ohhhhh man did we rage that night! How we didn’t get caught, I’ll never know...

 

[Scotsman01]

Hi Guys,
I apologise for my delay in keeping you all up to date.

1. I finally was able to remove the centre pin with quite a bit of hammering. I pulled the bottom gear and found some ridges in it which I smoothed out with emery paper. Some explanation was the gear was not exactly the correct one
2. My installation/Extraction tools arrived and I was able to remove both sides of bearings and seals and install the new ones.
3. Followed your advice and placed some oil on both bearings and seals .
4. As I can sometimes be an idiot, in my wisdom decided pull out the Z spring only to realise that I needed to compress it to fo fit it back in. That was a problem as I did not have a vice available- weeks later a vice arrived and I compressed the spring and refitted it. Followed "Chris Fix" advice and used the centre pin to align the different openings.
5. Of course the axles would not go back in as I had forgotten to remove the centre pin-DuH !
6. with the pin removed, both axles slotted in easily and the C clips were inserted without incident.
7. I did not know if a gasket or using gasket maker was the way to go- decided on the gasket maker and followed the lockdown sequence in the manual.
8. Setting the handbrake up was easy as I did it before securing the rotors. Typically me, lost one of the shoe securing pins and had to make one up
9. I had decided to replace both rotors as the originals looked the worse for wear especially the one that had the oil seal leak, another delay. I had already purchased new pads for the two callipers, but one cylinder just did not want to be compressed, so a delay for another couple of weeks before a cylinder compressor unit arrived
10. It was while I was trying to fit the calliper to the wheel that previously had the "oil Leak" that I noticed one of the rubbers on the calliper has a large hole in it. Fortunately I has spare rubbers with the pads supplied and was able to replace both of them. I sat and looked at that damaged rubber for quite a while hoping that it was not the cause of the "oil leak" the mechanic discovered. If it was, it would have made all this effort by me and all your help unnecessary, but I threw the oil seal and bearing from that side away So it will remain an unanswered question.
11. When both wheels were complete and the brake lines bled, there was only the Diff oil to be inserted. I expected to use my breaker bar to loosen it, but I found out the small jack just would not give me enough lift to use the breaker bar and it was apparent that the plug had not been moved flora long time.
12. I got it towed to the Diff repairer who pointed out that there was a couple of steel rods at each front suspension that had lost their rubber boots, so He could not do the front alignment.

**My manual does not readily identify these rods or their function, so any help is appreciated.**

I can only again express my thanks to all the members that helped me thru this drama and you should all get some satisfaction from the great conclusion

 

[Mbrooks420]

I’m guessing the rods to be the end links, which wouldn’t have anything to do with an alignment, however.

Gonna need a pic, or a better description of where these are.

 

[Scotsman01]

I’m guessing the rods to be the end links, which wouldn’t have anything to do with an alignment, however.

Gonna need a pic, or a better description of where these are.

You are right, a picture will come tomorrow