Sold WC-12 W-231808

[wc56daveyboy]

Aha.. dont get discouraged.. it's only money, right?

Besides you have been seeing the going rate of a finished closed cab 1/2 ton WC these days, right?
A truck of the caliber of restoration your doing should fetch easily close to 30k, IF the prices lusted are really the selling prices.

I do know of a nice one sold within the last year that sold for 25k plus.

A couple of them on another dodge site are in the asking range of over 30k

So..You will re-coup every penny if u ever sell it.

[17thAirborne]

I di not know the WCs had pushed over 30k. THat's nice to know.

[17thAirborne]

Installed the carrier to close up the axle housing. Started by scraping the old gasket material off. I followed up with some steel wool and then chased all the threads on the holes, nuts and studs. Then I flushed everything out. I used silicone gasket sealer on both sides of the gasket and then torqued the bolts down to 35lbs. I added some Teflon tape to the drain plug as the plug on the rear axle is seeping a few drops every day. I need to rectify that , but this should solve the problem.

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[rondo]

great job so far; following your resto closely.
I wasn't going to get into the knuckles on mine but after seeing the cracks it makes a guy wonder how that can happen...years of neglect I guess from the previous owners

[17thAirborne]

I am glad I dug into them. I cannot imagine how disastrous an on the road failure at 50 mph could have been. After assembling the carrier and closing it up I was not pleased with the "feel" of the pinion shaft. When tightening down the pinion nut the rotation of the shaft felt uneven. It was like the bearings were rubbing on something. I punched out the pinion shaft races from the carrier and when I ran my fingers on the inside it felt like a washboard. The bearings were running up and over the ridges making the bumpy feel to rotation. Its as if the pinion nut was over tightened and the bearing was fixed allowing only the rollers to rotate and they wore a groove in the race. I also noticed chunks of metal missing from the ring gear bearings. You cannot see the bearings or inner part of the race unless you remove the caps and take the ring gear out. I'll have to go through the laborious back lash/gear mesh drill again. On the advice of my bearing man he recommended replacing all 4 bearings and races. I found the main bearings, but the pinion bearings are on order.

I'm so glad that I did this.

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[17thAirborne]

My bearings came in today. The shop pulled the old pinion bearing and pressed on the new. Looks great. Since the first ring gear side bearing came off relatively easy I decided to pull the other one myself. AN hour later I finally had it off. Phew! I'll freeze the new pinion races so I can get them into their recesses in the carrier. When I am done, the entire front axle will have new races and bearings.

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[17thAirborne]

Bearings and races arrived. Pressed in all of the races, installed the pinion shaft and bearings along with a new inner oil slinger part 1B and tightened up the pinion shaft nut. The rotation is smooth as glass now with no binding.

I installed the races and rings on the carrier, put in the adjuster screws and installed the caps loosely. I set everything to where it was upon disassembly. Sooo I am back to where I was before sealing up the carrier. Next effort will be to set the backlash, and bearing tension and check the gear mesh between the ring and pinion gears. Everything adjusts much more easily than the rear axle now that I know better what to do. It feels good to be a seasoned veteran of two, (count them two) differential rebuilds

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[17thAirborne]

I checked the backlash between the pinion drive and the ring gear. I have it set to 0.008" within the manual tolerance listed above. The carrier turns smoothly and I was able to torque everything down, seal the differential housing and verify the torque required to rotate the flange is about 15 inch pounds without the oil seal installed. I'll install the oil seal on the next session.

I pressed in two new inner universal axle shaft oil seals after soaking them in oil and rolling the leather with a round shaft. The universal shafts slid in nicely with a bit of resistance from the seals. The Bendix Weiss set up was relatively easy to install after turning everything at the correct angle and holding my tongue in my cheek just right. I am stopping here for the day to assess my progress. Next is a bit of brake plate, flange and hub cleaning and blasting before I turn to installing knuckles, seals and the remaining parts for the hub.

Soon I will have a rolling chassis

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[17thAirborne]

No pics, but progress. Today I cleaned, blasted (as appropriate) and primed the brake backing plates, the brake pads, the steering knuckles and the knuckle flange. I have everything ready to finish assemble of the axle up to the installation of the hubs. I need to clean, blast and prime those along with the springs. Next week I should be able to start assembly of the axle and brakes and get ready to finish the hubs. I am really looking forward to getting the axle mounted onto the frame.

[17thAirborne]

Began to assemble one of the knuckles and flanges. I used some 600 grit paper and cleaned up the outside of the knuckle where the felt will rub against. I greased all of the Bendix-Weiss rollers and the seats. I installed the two knuckle halves. bolted them together and then began to work on getting the bearing tension correct. I started with no shims and torqued the nuts on the upper cap down to 25 and you could barely move the knuckle. Eventually I got to 4 total shims (don't ask the thickness as I did not measure since I have no way to know which thickness results in how much change in the movement pressure of the knuckle). I added the shims one at a time, installing and torquing the cap to 25 each time, then checking if the knuckle moved with a consistent pressure and no binding. 4 seemed to do it on this side. I installed the knuckle flange, the brake backing plate and the oil slinger plate. It took me two hours for one side, carefully following the TM and cleaning up nuts and bolts as I went.

Next will be the other side

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,
,
What a difference

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[17thAirborne]

Brakes are finished. Next stop......sand blasting of hubs and springs

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[17thAirborne]

I am going to replace the locking hubs that are post war with original flange caps. I will keep the lockers with the vehicle in case someone wants to add them back on. looking at bidding on these:

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[zboys]

message sent

[17thAirborne]

Message answered. Thanks. Will be in touch.

[BATMOBILE1]

Brakes are finished. Next stop......sand blasting of hubs and springs
brAKES DONE.jpg

Looking good OZ the shaft is sitting central now,compared to the before picture where the shaft is off to one side.