Happy New Year everyone!
I haven't really been up to much over the Christmas period, just cleaning and refurbishing the rear axle and brakes. Thanks to Bens (Bodgerben) advice I managed to get the half shafts out and ordered new oil seals for the back axle. I then sealed all open areas with gaffer tape and set about stripping it back to bare metal again(!!) before giving it a couple of coats of red oxide and a couple of cans of satin black. The grease inside the bearings looks nice and clean, the bearings themselves are nice and tight. They should go back together quite nicely with new lock washers, grease nipples and shiny bolts.
Make sure you get all of the shims, a couple of mine are really thin and were quite difficult to see.
It's nice having a warm workshop in this weather!
First coat of satin.
Ready for reassembly
Can someone tell me how the axles left the factory, were all of the bolt heads painted over or left bright?
The backplates and diff cover got treated to a good coating of paint stripper (not the usual stuff that you get at your local diy store!), cleaned, shot blasted and then again a couple of coats of red oxide and a few coats of satin black. I was going to take the backplates to be powder coated but decided against it. I was a bit concerned about how much the powder coating would effect the shim clearance when it all goes back together so I kept the coats light around the joins. I am not 100% happy with the level of finish, the backplates are pretty pitted from rust don't look great but this is one of those situations where I cant really do much more so I have resigned myself to thinking that this is as good as they're going to get.
The rear drums were in very good condition so I just wire brushed these and gave the insides a light dusting of satin to protect them then the outsides a good couple of coats of red oxide and satin. I gave the springs, handbrake linkage and auto adjusters a light blast in the sandblaster. Looking at these they all have remnants of black paint on them so look like they were originally painted rather than plated so I gave these all a light coat of satin as well. I have to say after the backplates I'm quite pleased with the result.
I was going to have the wheel nuts anodised in black but decided to have a go at painting them to see how they came out, I'm quite pleased with the result, I'm not sure how well they'll last against a socket but we shall see. They will probably end up getting anodised at some point!
I am just waiting for the plating and some new bolts to arrive and I am ready to reassemble.