Worked On a Ball Joint, Axle, Tires and Batteries for a Productive Day

Saturday June 18, 2016 Guerneville CA.

Chores to do

Being Saturday and all, I let the  tourists have the river and I stay home and do some chores and just enjoy my yard.

Clunky sounds

My car has been making a clunk when I go around turns so  I thought it would be a good time to replace the driver’s side front axle as the boots that keep the grease in them have been cracked for about five years now. I already had the new axle as I bought it a few years ago, but never got around to putting it on as things were working ok.

I jacked up the car and checked the  front wheel by trying to wiggle it back and forth and I got a clunk alright. The lower ball joint was bad and needed replacing and was likely making the clunk sound when I went around turns. So I looked in my box of  parts and found a new part in there so maybe I was going to replace it some time ago, but forgot.

At any rate I installed the new ball joint and was thinking maybe I didn’t have to replace the axle. But I already had a bunch of the stuff off that would also need to be taken apart to replace the axle so I decided to do it and besides, it’s the thing to do, not be lazy.

Here’s my work area and the old and new axle in the lower left. I just removed the old axle.

You can see the rubber boots are ripped apart on the old axle on the top. Checking the new axle, it looks like it will fit.

I greased and put antiseize where needed and put the new axle in and double checked all the bolts as I seem to be a little careless tightening things up in my older age which I’ve noticed lately.

Test drive for ice cream

Once things were back together, I washed the grease off my hands with some good hand cleaner and took a test drive to town where I picked up some Dryer’s chocolate ice cream. It’s one of the few ice creams that is corn free and I can consume.

I devoured most of that ice cream when I got home and took a nap.

Finally aired up the Toyota tire

Next I needed to put some air in the tire of my Toyota Land Cruiser. The tire has a slow leak and has been sitting flat for about five years. I’m sure the battery is dead too. I need to rejuvenate this rig this summer so I can use it again to go up in the hills.

I aired the tire up with no problem. I thought I may have to do something to seal the rim to get it started, but I got lucky and the  rim sealed right up as I put air in the tire. I aired all the other tires up too.

I’m thinking of  getting a new gas tank for it as the one in there is pretty rusty and a new one would come with more pipe inlets so I could install a TBI, an injector with a  computer like I have on my van. It’s an after market item that uses stock 1990 Chevy parts. I’m also going to look into another spare gas tank to mount under the rear where there is a bunch of space.

So anyway, it all starts with blowing up the tires.

It doesn’t really look like it, but that tire is so flat the rim is on the ground.

My paint job is pretty bad too as I’ve had this rig since 1969 and done a lot and been a lot of places with it. I used it working on a three thousand acre ranch out by Lake Sonoma for about ten years too. It’s been a good rig and I almost sold it once, but then came to my senses and realized that I should die with it, so I should get it back to a useable state.

Washed the dirt off the van springs

Once that was done, I moved my van out by a water faucet and washed all the dirt off around the front springs so the shop guy will have it a bit nicer not having all the dirt falling down on him, which also means the job should get done better too.

Testing and charging the batteries

I parked the van and got my volt meter out to check the voltage on the van batteries as last time I drove it the other day to get the springs measured, I thought the voltage was a bit low.

I think I need to disconnect the batteries when I’m not using it as the batteries seemed to be getting drained. They both read about twelve volts. 12. 6 volts would have been a better reading.

Measuring the van batteries.

I got the charger out and hooked it up to the first battery to charge up and I’ll do the other one tomorrow.

Picked some potatoes too

I was looking at my potato supply and realized I needed some more so I dug up a few for dinner tonight.

That was my day for a productive one and a nice day too.