The new half shaft ends came in from DriveShaft Shop. Interestingly these ones are the type I’m more used to seeing, the tri lobed bearings. The old joint utilized six large balls in a cage type bearing arrangement. I don’t know which is better. The diameter of the cup is slightly smaller and the bearing assembly looks a lot smaller and lighter. Anyway, removed the old boots, bearing assemblies, and installed the new parts, grease spooge getting everywhere. Yes, rebuilding CV joints is a horrible messy affair, I usually don’t bother anymore, but racecar. No using mystery China/Korea CV shafts. Continue reading ‘Got the Shaft’
The LSD and transaxle are back in the FX, but the half shafts aren’t scheduled to arrive until Friday. In the meantime, tackled issue with the driver door not wanting to open. Took off interior door card and found disconnected linkage, and readjusted one of the pivot points. I noted that the door card is actually heavier than you might think, it has a sheet metal panel on the top edge. So that got me to thinking of being all racer since the FX is now in mod class. I’ve already removed the rear seats. The interior plastic is succumbing to age and cracking anyway, and I spied tucked behind shelf the pieces of plastic sheet I bought to fabricate the intake box. It was in perfect sized pieces! Set to work cutting and drilling yielded my new door cards. Good for a couple pounds, I’d say.
It’s nice to post a non-rant about customer service. You might recall (did I post about it?) that at the last rallycross event, I snapped one of my custom Driveshaft Shop shafts. These were 2/3 custom and supposed to hold up to hard use. I was well outside of the warranty period so was not expecting much, but I contacted them. DSS quickly got back to me and told me they would remanufacture and replace the ends, they had some suspect heat treat on parts around the time mine were made. All I have to cover is shipping, and they are now on their way. It took a while because the guy in charge of rolling the shaft splines had been out with a serious snowboarding injury, lol.
Part two of the story is that the shaft that broke was inside the differential side, in the KAAZ limited slip. To extract the broken part, I ended up welding a bolt to it and slide hammering it out. Ends up that I didn’t need to, could have inserted a rod from the opposite side and hammer it out that way, 20/20 hindsight. Anyway, doing so left bits of slag and the splines in the LSD were scratched. So I contacted KAAZ USA who also promptly replied. They gave me an initial estimate, which was far less than I expected, unless the housing was damaged. I shipped it off to them for closer inspection. They told me the damage looked worse than it was and said it should be fine if they just cleaned up the splines and bearing flange. The rest of the unit was in good shape and since they were in there they rearranged the clutch plates to shift the more worn ones around. They charged me nominal labor, the shipping charges came out far more!
I just finished reassembling and reinstalling the transaxle, which went in surprisingly easily. One kick and it slid back together. I guess having done it more than a half dozen times I’ve gotten the theorems down.
So shout out to The Driveshaft Shop and KAAZ, I would not hesitate to heartily recommend them to anyone!
Something new at Foodland from New Belgium, “Easygoing Ale.” Pours clear bright yellow, light head. Likewise light and bright aroma and taste, touch of citrus. Just a bit of hop and bitter in middle which quickly goes away. light mouthfeel although carbonation is weak.
Yes, easy drinking, but also nothing outstanding. I give it 2.5 easy monkeys.
we arrived early only to be hung up waiting for gate to clear and end up late. Thought we were going to have to haul our butts across Calgary airport, turns out its the same plane!
So much for seeing what YYC is like, theres a Molson Brewpub right across our gate, but i dont think can pound a pint in time.
sitting in airplane on tarmac at Calgary waiting to get to the gate. Westjet messed with the flights between the time i made initial reservations and didnt notice it until trying to check in last night. So instead of leaving Kelowna at 3:00 PM we had to get there for flight at 10:30AM. Im salty because that meant we had to leave Revy early in the morning and we were going to miss out in breakfast/brunch at Main Street Cafe.
Instead we had to leave and do the drive to Kelowna in the dark, catch a flight to Calgary, make connection to Vancouver, then layover for four hours before getting onto our original flight home. I suppose if we were really inspired we could take the train to HK’s and get some roast pork.
get back from getting take out pizza to find police, ambulance in parking. As we park and walk to entrance just inside EMTs are working on someone. Go in different entrance and hear them reporting and unresponsive female at the hotel.
Dang those weekend kids! Cases of empty PBR out in the halls this morning, long line at the corner liquor shop as the clerk cards everyone, our room was hastily serviced by housekeeping today, shower ran only warm water. Looks like they stayed on the mountain till last lift though, we bailed earlier and the 3:30 bus was not crowded. We’re thinking we should go early and get dinner.
And the wifi is really slow now.
amother morning on the funk bus. Looks like a new crop of fresh faced visitors. Excited chatter in various languages. Roads in town are all sloshy now, gone is the pristine winter wonderland image.