Sunday, June 27,
2004
- Well, I decided to take a vacation day on Friday to give me a
three-day weekend to spend in the shop getting the rear suspension
sandblasted, painted and reinstalled. Unfortunately, I didn't get as far
as I'd have like, due to numerous delays and mechanical difficulties,
but all in all I think it was a productive three days.
Knowing that I was
going to have the marathon session, I went to the shop for a few hours
after work on Wednesday night to get things ready. I wanted to have the
spring packs completely disassembled and ready to sandblast, so I stayed
until they were completely torn down.
I hit the shop at about
9AM on Friday morning, ready and rearing to go. I rolled the engine
hoist with the Dana 60 on it outside into the driveway and spent a few
minutes scraping grease and crud and then fired up the sandblaster. Man,
I sure wish I had a larger sandblaster...and a large air compressor to
handle it! As mentioned in a previous update, I only get about 5 minutes
worth of blasting before I empty the tank, and then have to spend
another 20 minutes sweeping up the sand, filtering it and refilling the
hopper. It's a very time-consuming process. About mid-afternoon I had a
major problem...the threads for the tank galled and it took me over an
hour just to remove it. By the time I'd forced it off, I was missing the
lower 1/3 of the threads in the cap and the upper 1/3 of the threads on
the tank. I thought I was dead in the water until I could get another
sandblaster on order. However, I decided to jury-rig it back together to
get me through. Using my die-grinder, I removed the bad threads on the
cap and tank, and when I was done the cap would still screw on, although
it was only held on by about three threads. This is DEFINITELY NOT
something I'd recommend to anyone, considering the potential for
disaster if the remaining threads let go while the tank was under
pressure. However, I was desperate and decided to give it a try. It DID
get me through the remainder of the weekend, though I do still plan on
ordering a replacement as soon as possible.
Anyway, by late
afternoon I finally finished up sandblasting the rearend. I just rolled
it a little farther down the driveway, wiped it down and gave it several
coats of paint. I then headed back to the sandblaster and got started on
the leaf springs. I worked on those until I ran out of daylight about
8:30 PM.
I made it back to the
shop at about 10AM Saturday morning, ready to get cranking again. I
fired up the sandblaster again, which seems to be holding OK for now,
and got back to work on the spring leaves. However, after blasting for
about an hour, it started spitting rain on me! Dammit! Since any
moisture at all will really clog up the sandblaster, I rushed around
getting everything back inside, to wait it out. I was hoping the gray
clouds would just blow over and I could get back to work.
In the
meantime, I got the outer shells for the rear spring bushings removed
(scroll down for details) and got the engine towers cleaned up and ready
to sandblast. By this time it was almost 4PM and it was obvious that I
was done with any outside sandblasting today. Last fall I'd constructed
an indoor sandblast booth to allow me to work on the cab over the
winter, but when summer arrived, I didn't figure I'd need it anymore, so
I'd begun tearing it down. However, since I really needed to get some
work done today, I reassembled it and got back to work sandblasting
inside. Fig. 5 shows the extent of progress I was able to make
sandblasting the leaves. However, I DID take a few minutes to also
sandblast and paint the engine towers and got those installed (Fig. 6).
I finally dragged myself home about 11PM, feeling like I'd been through
the wringer!
|
Fig. 1 - First thing
Friday morning...ready to get busy!
Fig. 2 - Plugging along
with the sandblasting.
Fig. 3 - Almost done.
Fig. 4 - The Dana 60
housing is finally finished!
Fig. 5 - A shot of what
I was able to accomplish today.
Fig. 6 - The engine
towers were blasted and attached. I had to get SOMETHING new mounted,
since I wasn't going to get the rear suspension reinstalled as I'd
hoped. |