Got a little more time over the weekend, the brakes turned into a little more than I wanted. The left rear brake hose looked suspect, so I wanted to replace them both. The hard line is crimped into the brake hoses from the factory, and there was no option that I could find for getting a full set of pre-bent hardlines with hoses. So I just got some hoses and a length of brake line & made my own. I wasn't planning on spending a day & a half on getting the lines just right, but I did. Should work fine, we'll see if my homemade flares leak when I go to bleed the brakes. I realized after I took this picture that the left brake line is farther away from the axle than I like, and given the fact that the pinion is going to be raised I think I'm going to redo that one. At this point I just want to get it centered so I can get my driveshaft.
Changed the pinion seal, cleaned up the axle, gave it a fresh coat of paint, & hung the control arms. Here she is in all her glory ready to be hanged.
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What's not cool is that when I was going through my control arms from Core 4x4 two of the arms had forged ends with the snap ring not completely seated in the groove. I messed with them a little bit & can't get them to pop in. I called the place & their first response was to see if I can press the joint further into the housing, but I told them A: I don't have a press, and B: Even if I did, I have about an hour a week of free time to work on this thing & I'm not interested in losing my time because of their quality escapes. Still waiting to hear back.
Installing the zerks was also a pain in the ass because they got their powder coat all up in the threads. I couldn't chase it because my taps are tapered & wouldn't thread before they bottomed out on the joint, so I had to get a cutting wheel & nick a zerk fitting to turn it into a tap & chase the threads out. Minor annoyance.
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