Arizona Rock Crawler
- Thread starter starkey480
- Start date
OP
Went wheeling today for my dads birthday. Brought my wife and my stepmom out on a mild but very fun and scenic trail that goes through a forest out to a lake where we had a little picnic.
Happy Birthday Dad.
I dropped my rims off a bit ago to get new tyres. I felt like it was Christmas day when I took the call that the tyres were here.
OP
OP
OP
The first 2 wheeling trips, my ARB locker did not leak. Pump would only run once when I turned it on and last indefinitely. This past weekend the pump was turning on a lot more often and now it’s turning on every 29 seconds or so.
I put my ear up to the breather and there is definitely air coming from it. What’s the most likely culprit? Seal housing O rings?
I put my ear up to the breather and there is definitely air coming from it. What’s the most likely culprit? Seal housing O rings?
Pull the cover and cross your fingers it is the bulkhead oring.
OP
Pulled the cover. It’s the copper tube right at the seal housing. When I got the axle, the copper tube was insanely short. It was barely long enough to get up through the bulkhead fitting.
Looks like I’ll be replacing the seal housing…
You'll need to pull the cover and get in there with some soapy water or Windex in a sprayer and find the location of the leak. It would be a shame to pull carrier and find out it was the o-ring at the copper line.
I can extend the copper line if that helps. And, I can desolder the one in the seal housing and solder a new one in. Done it many times.
OP
I really appreciate that offer. I went ahead and ordered a new seal housing already. There’s a 4wp next to my apartment that says it should get in by Friday. Hoping I can still wheel on Sunday.
You can extend it yourself with some plumbing solder. Go to your local ACE, find the same size copper line, then get the next size up. Use a drill bit exactly the diameter of the line to drill out a short piece of the larger to make a coupling. Clean it, flux it, small butane torch and some solder will stick that together like new. The soldering heat will anneal the line and make it easy to bend and route.
OP
I like it. Seems easy enough. What do you do for the the part where the copper line is cracked right at the seal housing?
Those I drill out, clean, silver braze a new line in. Never tried one with lead solder though. If you can get it clean and get the solder to flow, it should work with plumbing solder. The challenge will be to keep the heat off of the copper and low temp flux until the seal collar gets hot enough to melt the solder. Not hard, just flame control.
I used to make Native American style silver jewelry, using high temp 50 and 56% silver solder to stick a few things together is fairly basic with as much practice as I have. I call it silver brazing to give folks the impression that it is better than normal soldering everyone is familiar with. I'm likely not too good at actual brazing with brazing rod.