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Ax(le) me no questions and I'll tell you no lies

wreckerman893

wreckerman893

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Some of you might remember that I recently bought an M923A2 from GL Hotlanta.
It came (at no extra charge) with severe forklift damage to the rear axle and brake chambers.:whistle:

It had been drained of all fluids, the batteries had been removed and it had some slight rust issues but all in all I'm happy with it. :mrgreen:

After filling everything back and installing some batteries she fired right up and purred like a kitten. The tranny shifts out good so I think I got a pretty good deal for the price.

Today I decided to swap out the damaged one with a take out I got from Derek (TaylorTradingCo). Thanks Derek for a great deal.[thumbzup][thumbzup]

This morning the weather was passable so I decided to swap the new axle in so I can actually drive the truck and see how her road manners are.

I started with a big breakfast of homeade biscuits, farm fresh eggs and ham.

Thus fortified I collected all the implements of destruction I thought I'd need and jumped right in. I have no "Soldier B" so I had to carefully plan every step of the operation so I could get the job done and avoid as much bodily injury as possible.

I had learned the hard way while pulling the axle at Dereks' that 20 years of rust and CARC do not make removing the bolts easy. Even with an impact gun they are still a pain. Today I fired up the "blue flame speed wrench" and burned the CARC off and heated the nuts. My small inpact gun made short work of them.

My next chore was to remove the super singles and since I also have a one inch impact wrench again the chore was pretty easy except for almost getting flattened by one. My nimble grace allowed me to escape with only a couple of bruised toes.

Again using a lesson learned at Dereks' I allowed the weight of the axle to pull down the dogbones to where it could be backed out of the spring mounts. I have some industrial rollers that I used to "skate" the axle far enough back to snag it with my tractor forks.

Since the CTIS has been removed from the wheels already I capped off the axles with some plugs I bought locally to keep water and debris out of the axles. I'll do the intermediate axle while I'm under there tomorrow.

I got the new axle positioned but ran out of daylight before I could install it. I'll post the results tomorrow if the weather cooperates.

Here are some pics.
 

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Stoner63

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Biscuits, Eggs and bacon can make a man do some crazy things in the morning.

For those of you military enthusiast wrecker man lives near the Gadsden airport. Whats unique about that? You can see several Mig 17’s 21 fox bats and other soviet aircraft that fly out of there. A company there restores them and sells them all over the world. It’s wild to see the big red star on the tails.
 
S

Stoner63

New member
72
0
0
Location
Birmingham, Alabama
Biscuits, Eggs and bacon can make a man do some crazy things in the morning.

For those of you military enthusiast wrecker man lives near the Gadsden airport. Whats unique about that? You can see several Mig 17’s, Mig 21's fox bats and other soviet aircraft that fly out of there. A company there restores them and sells them all over the world. It’s wild to see the big red star on the tails.
 
wreckerman893

wreckerman893

Possum Connoisseur
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IMG_4700.jpgIMG_4701.jpgIMG_4702.jpgIMG_4703.jpgIMG_4704.jpgIMG_4705.jpgThe mission was completed today. Got all the air lines hooked back up and everything adjusted. Took her for a short bumpy ride to seat the axle and make sure nothing is loose. Tomorrow I'll take her on a short road trip to see how she behaves on the hardball.
here are some more pics.
 
rtk

rtk

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VERY NICE ! had a good breakfast , didn't loose any digits , and got it on the road , all in all a great day .
 
wreckerman893

wreckerman893

Possum Connoisseur
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Location
Akenback acres near Gadsden, AL
Not one bit of that looked like it was fun. That silly axle is HEAVY!
Click to expand...
Let's just say I've had all the axle swapping I can enjoy for a while. My big concern was that once I got the axle under the truck the top heavy SOB would roll either foward or backward. To thwart Murphy I chained it front and back and left enough slack so I could inch it forward into position. Lots of sitting and thinking about what could go wrong before I made a move.
I inched it forward on the rollers and then, using a floor jack, got it high enough to get the leaf springs into the perches.
Most of my "boo boo's" were from cracking my coconut repeatedly on the underside of the truck if I raised up before thinking about it.:doh:
Tomorrow I'll find out if I got a diamond or a lump of coal.
 
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