Front Axle Housing

The front axle housing is now ready to be reassembled and painted! I just finished the clean-up today, but some of the other parts still need some cleaning before re-assembly. It was a lot of work and difficult to clean with the wire wheel because of all the angles. Thankfully I only have to do this one more time to the rear axle, and it is a little easier to clean. Here it is all shiny (but a little dusty still)!

The clean up continues...

I thought I would post today just for the sake of posting, since I haven't posted in about 2 weeks. Most of the work lately still involves cleaning up old grease and removing rust and other crud...not terribly glamorous (which is why I haven't posted a lot lately). Most of my work is focused on the axles. I've been pulling the extraneous parts off (for cleaning and inspection) and getting the axles ready for a real mechanic to verify the gears inside are good to go. Here's the front axle in the midst of clean-up:

This is the pile of hubs, brake drums and backing plates that I have removed in anticipation of installing a disc-brake system on the jeep...more to come on that later (hopefully).

Here is the clutch pedal that I cleaned up. It was covered with what appeared to be tar with fine gravel stuck to it. It seems funny to me how a piece of steel can be worn down by the sole of a shoe.

Torque Reaction Spring

I've got my torque reaction spring (TRS) cleaned up, bushings replaced, re-assembled and primed. I think this is the first thing (other than the wheels) ready to go back on the jeep. The TRS is a 'secondary' spring attached below the driver's side leaf spring meant to remedy a handling problem inherent in WW2 jeeps. It's not that big, only about 2 feet long.

Rear axle work

Started work on the rear axle! For now its mostly just cleanup and getting all the old black, thick grease out. It was finally nice enough to do some work outside with the sun shining and temperatures in the mid 40's. Upon opening up the rear differential, I discovered that there is one shattered tooth among the "spider gears" which has resulted in some damage on the teeth on the other gears that it touches as it turns. Luckily I have a spare axle with good gears that I will replace it with. Here is a close up shot. Shattered tooth is on the right with the sun glare on it.

I pulled the ring gear and spider gear assembly out as it will be replaced and so I could better clean out the housing. Here is another shot of the gear assembly. Do you think that perhaps it was made by Ford? If you need some help, look at the bolt heads... :)

Here are another couple pictures of the housing and the gear assembly: