VC removal and front axle rebuild

One of my least favorite jobs on the Land Cruiser, the front axle rebuild. When those at IH8MUD.com say make sure you have disposable gloves and a case of paper towels, take the seriously! The amount of sludge, grease, and birf soup (caused by diff oil leaking into the knuckle) was to say the least, enormous!

This was the first round of rags, the 99 cent turkey pans from the dollar store were worth their weight in gold for this project and the spare pickle buckets were also a godsend.

First was to remove as much grease with paper towels as possible as show below.  

 

After the initial wipe down I used the square bucket as a "parts washer" and filled over the part with kerosene, put the lid on and manually "swished" for a few minutes and then let sit.

 

After wiping down the parts and getting most of the grease off I used a spray bottle to soak them down a bit and then took them to the "box" where I used a cupped wire brush on a drill to start knocking off the heavy stuff. This kept the grease and road grim from being thrown everywhere.
Below is a spindle and knuckle before and after the wheel.

After getting them cleaned up it was back to the kerosene station for another bath and wipe down.

After the rags were coming up somewhat "clean it was off to be blasted with brake cleaner

This really exposed where the grime still was and even though I thought I had been fairly thorough each part had to make its way back to the wire wheel box for a second time and then wiped down with kerosene and back to brake cleaner.

Once satisfied with them they went to be taped up for painting. I wasn't initially going to paint these but I was now so deep into the job it seemed senseless to reassemble without giving them a fresh coat of flat satin black. Opted to prime them first with etching primer before the top coat.

And since I had everything apart I decided to do these as well, OME castor correction bushings.

Two of the old ones came out fine, the other arm fought me tooth and nail and eventually needed to be chiseled out. Going in I nearly mushroomed one but was able to save it.

 

The knuckle itself on the drivers side had noticeable surface rust, this was addressed again with a wire wheel and some emery cloth.

This coming weekend should be time enough to put this project to bed although I am contemplating doing  power steering pump rebuild since there is more room to maneuver around now and with any luck I'll finally get those OPOR sliders mounted!

 

 

 

 

More time, more stuff!

Again more time passed and more done on the Land Cruiser but not a lot of time to do some documentation. Since the last post I've installed an IPOR rear bumper, OME heavy springs on the front and back, and installed a custom made drawer system in the back.

On deck is an IPOR skid plate, a set of OPOR sliders, and to finally get the thing in a full coat of JD Blitz black paint, but I digress so here is some shots of the rear drawer system.

They came out better than I had expected but more work than I had planned on

25" of extension

They also close the rear hatch should you want it down

Plenty of room too

The side wings are piano hinged

A good place to keep quick grab stuff like rain coat, oil, etc

I then made some custom mounts to hold these mini extinguishers to the D pillar where the seat belts used to anchor.

I also used some quick fist mounts to do an axe and shovel where the third row grabs used to be

A quick video, sorry about the lighting!

 

This project was more involved than I thought it would be, thinking it would be a weekend project it turned out into a several weekend project but I am happy with the results.

 

So now some shots of the OME heavy's I put on along with the IPOR rear bumper. I ended up gaining about 2.5" of lift which will be nice for some 33" tires down the road.

Might have to put some spacers up front to get it to sit a bit more level

Good shot of the heavy spindles on the IPOR. I will be building the swing outs later this year.

Overall I'm pretty happy with the way it's coming together.

Here are some shots of the OPOR sliders after removing from the pallet

And here they are after a couple coats of JD Blitz black

Hope to get these on shortly, weather permitting I'm painting the truck on June 14th and installing the skidplate and these the following day.