Well another day and more items knocked out. I have taken the approach that before I just tear things apart and bag and tag parts, I have started a notebook with a detail of each item that is coming off and notes about any issues.
So I decided that the area of the car to start with was at the back end of the car and work my way forward. Pulled the braces and cross brace, pan, sway bar and then dropped the exhaust system as a whole item. As each item came off I spent the time to clean and polish each part back to a nice shine. Many would say why...and I remember advice my dad gave me a long time ago: if you don't clean something when you do work on it, how will you know when something changes and it gets hidden in the existing dirt?
As I dug into the car I was impressed how clean it was considering it is going 14 year old. Not much dirt and little to no leakage on any of the seal. However, like a lot of threads I have read, I spent a fair bit of time cleaning off the cosmoline from parts. A soft wire bristle brush on a drill works wonders to bring that like new look back.
After all that the big item for today was the axles and CV joints. Once the exhaust was out they simply dropped out and were ready to be worked on. If you are planning on doing your CV joints and you order the kit...be aware that your new parts may show up in an unassembled condition. Ball bearing housing and inner spline were rolling around in the box. You would think it would simply be an easy assembly...think again. You need to pay attention to how the inner spline inserts into the body of the CV. After mucking around with it for about 20 minutes, I found that dropping one of the six bearings out, inserting the parts together and then popping the sixth bearing in at the end...the CV joint worked like magic.
After rebuilding the axles, I got my cardboard sheet to put my transmission bolts in when I remove it...and the I found a little surprise. Bolts G and H were MISSING! Not a common thing, but on my 96' Bronco I had the same thing happen where two bolts had backed out over time. Good thing Wayne had the part numbers listed in the project book...so they were ordered today.
Also, thank you Thstone...my DMFW and transmission mounts showed up yesterday. Yeah it was pricey to get the flywheel, but after looking at all the threads and discussions on the forum, I would sooner replace it now then put all these new parts in and have to come back in a year and do the flywheel.
Well, enough gabbing, here are some pics of the work.
