Hello All,
I bought my 1500 back in April and although it ran (and still does) very
well, the rear end was pretty noisy. I have heard from other 1500 owners
that this is old hat for 1500s. When the rear ends start to go out they let
you know it. About a month ago I was driving my 1500 when a load clang
announced that I now had a serious problem. From this point on my rear end
sounded like bolts in a blender.
I bought my donor car three weeks ago and today was the day I picked to
switch out the rear end on my driver with the one from the donor. The donor
has been living at Jon Frampton's shop since I picked it up and I met Paul
Bauman there at 7 am to start tearing the rear end out of the donor car.
Undoing the emergency brake lines turned out to be the hard part. We also
discovered that it was far easier just to remove the front spring bolt and
lower the diff to the ground on the springs. We then just pulled the entire
rear end out of the car, loaded it up and drove it over to Paul's house.
At Paul's house we made a dicscovery that brought laughter and embarassment.
The drums on the 64 are held in place by two screws. On my 67, I just banged
it a couple of times with a rubber mallet and it came right off, but try as
we might, we could not get them off of the 64. Finally Paul notices the
screws and we have the drums off in seconds. This after at least 30 minutes
of banging on them like to two jungle natives sending war signals.
The main difficulty in putting the replacement rear end back into my driver
turned out to be the brake line running from the 3 way block to the
passenger side coupling. Broke it clean off. Had to go back to the donor and
get the line off of it. While I had the brakes off, I replaced both
cylinders. Paul helped me bleed the brakes and we finally took the car down
off the jack stands about 5:30 pm.
What a difference! The rear end is as quiet as can be. It's almost too quiet
as I had been use to the noisy diff. Brakes are better and the car is
handling well. I will check all of the bolts on the diff and shackles in
about 100 miles to make sure is everything is OK after things settle. It was
a lot of hard work, but totally worth it as I can now make the Palomar run.
A special thanks to Paul and Pam Bauman for helping me out today. I could
not have done it without them. Paul is a wealth of information and a wiz
with the tools. Thanks again Paul.
So I am out and about again with a good rear end in the car. See you at
Palomar!
Andrew Murphy
SoCalROC
P.S. Pam took pictures and I am sure they are a riot as I was a walking
grease fitting by the time it was over.
Check out the SoCalROC Website!
www.socalroc.com
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