The all-too-slow car repair saga continues
The axles are out!
The half-shafts from the transmission to the wheels were not as easy as I expected to remove from the transmission. Many online videos seemed to suggest a light tug could pop them loose. Not so. Leverage and brute force were needed. This guy's a bit obnoxious, but he's got the right advice!
I didn't use a tie-rod puller like he says, though. I screwed the nut back on enough to protect the threads and then hit it with a big hammer. And then I used a crowbar and the big hammer to pop the axles free at the transmission. Big hammers are more important for repair work than I anticipated.
Now the car is down from the jackstands and rolled back out of the garage for now until I can make time to actually pull the engine. Don't hold your breath for that update.
If you like this post, please comment, follow, and resteem!
If you like this post, please comment, follow, and resteem!
What kind of vehicle are you working on? My son and I are currently rebuilding a 1993 nissan 240sx.
Yours is definitely more interesting than mine. It's a 1995 Dodge Neon. The new car doesn't even have cruise control. I'm hoping the wiring harness will let me swap steering wheels and connect to hidden systems that just never got connected on the base models.
Both cars are standard transmission models though, so I can get the most out of the little 2.0L 4-banger.
My son is only 15, he wants to build his first car. So he found the 240sx . So far we have completely redone the front end. Put coilovers on the front and back. Still have to redo the rearend. We pulled the engine and transmission about 2 weeks ago. Its tuff though, I am know mechanic. But we are building good memories. Thanks. Followed.
There's usually some other hardware involved with a cruise control system you'll have to swap over (besides the steering wheel), especially with an old car like that which will likely have a mechanical throttle body. Probably a wiring harness too.
Well I have all the parts in my old totaled donor car, and that part of the electrical system isn't giving me grief.
Still admiring the bravery of it all!
It's a learning experience. Fortunately, for everything but the engine and transmission I have spare parts on hand!
If you can get hold of a block of scrap hard wood, you can drive those axles out of the hubs with a full size sledge. Once you break them loose, usually a smaller hammer and a pry bar will get you the rest of the way out. On the other end, I find a good pry bar placed as far inboard as possible pops them right out. Don't use a crow bar, get one intended for automotive use, even a cheap one will be superior to a crow bar because of the thinner end.
What I used wasn't a crowbar per se. It was a thinner pry bar. I didn't have a whole lot of room to work either.
Yeah, the engineers of these cars don't usually give much consideration to backyard mechanics. It's always a challenge when you don't have any specialty tools and you're in the cramped space jack stands give you. Experience does help though. By the time I was 25, I had gone through 11 or 12 cars averaging over 30k miles a year and none of them cost me more than $700 (couldn't afford anything better). I did an awful lot of wrenching on that old junk to keep them going. Learned a lot in the process.