Been a while since I posted anything here. Kids have been busy with school. Joseph was the manager for both the Fresh/Soph and Varsity football teams. Javier is still working after school at the body shop he started working at last summer. Molly is busy with dance after school also.
This last weekend, Joseph and I took on the task of taking care of a squeak/growl from his rear axle. Thought it might be a axle bearing or brakes needing some work. Plan was to replace both since we were going to be at it.
Getting the cover off the differential was fun as the bottom three bolts broke off and I had to use a bolt extractor on the rest of them to get the cover off.
Joseph got to learn about using left hand drill bits and taps.
While spinning the drive shaft to position the rear diff to pull the c-clips, I discovered the true cause of the noise. His rear u-joint was pretty well toast so I decided to leave the axle bearings alone and button up the rear diff, put new lube in it, and move on to the brakes.
Joseph now has been able to work on both drum and disc brakes. He has a better appreciation of the simplicity of disc brakes after helping replace all the springs, pins, brake cylinder and shoes on drum brakes.
After the brakes were done, we went and got a new u-joint, popped it in and called it a weekend.
Was a great time to hang out with Joseph, turn some wrenches and teach him a few more things.
Here is a picture my wife took during the process of dealing with the rusty bolts on the differential. You can see my tap set is already open there.
