Jawa
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- Aurora, CO
This week I decided to rebuild my tcase in an attempt to resolve some harmonic vibe/howling problems I've been dealing with for months. After having all new gears and bearings put in both axles, hub assemblies replaced, rear wheel bearings replaced, front driveshaft u-joints replaced, rear u-joints greased and inspected, and driveline angles checked, I figured the tcase might be my problem.
DutchVDub was nice enough to help me, so I headed up to his place on Monday. We got everything apart and realized the input bearing in my rebuild kit was wrong. Of course we didn't find that out until it was way too late to find a replacement anywhere... I had to call someone to pick me up and loan me a car so I could get home that night.
Next day I took off work early and returned the rebuild kit. The shop that sold it to me couldn't source the correct input bearing after 45 minutes of trying. I didn't have any better luck calling NAPA and the other stores. The bearing is special order everywhere. Since my rig is my DD and I need to get my loaner car back ASAP, I picked up some used tcases from Stang5lgt and figured I'd just swap the whole back half and be done with it.
Well... after comparing the tcases from Stang to mine, we figured that I probably could have used the rebuild kit and the different bearing in the first place. So we figure since everything is apart we really ought to do it right and rebuild everything rather than slap two used tcase halves together. I keep the loaner and drive home without my rig for a second night...
The next day I re-buy the rebuild kit, but also talk to a tcase/tranny specialist and find that the different bearing won't work after all. Thankfully that guy had the right bearing on hand, so I went and picked it up along with the rebuild kit. I head up to Dutch's and hallelujah we get everything back together and in the Jeep. Then we go to fill it up and I strip the fill plug... Friggin' great! Thankfully Dutch had an extractor kit and was able to get it out. Then we ran into our next problem - no pump or tubes or anything to get ATF into the tcase. It's getting really late at this point, so we roll my Jeep into the street so Dutch can call it a night and I head out to the closest 24 hour Walmart. I finally found something that did the trick and got the tcase filled... at 1:30 in the morning.
I still have the loaner, so I had to leave it at Dutch's and drive the Jeep home. I'll go back tonight with my wife to pick it up and return it.
In summary, this tcase rebuild required:
2 days and 3 nights of my heep sitting in Dutch's garage
4 100-mile round trips to Dutch's... in a 70s F250 that gets about 8 MPG (my loaner)
3 trips to Drivetrain Industries to buy, return, and re-buy the rebuild kit
1 half day off of work
and a TON of inconvenience for everyone involved... Dutch and his wife, my father-in-law (who loaned me his truck), and my wife.
Sorry for the loooooong post. I felt like ranting about this! ...and the best part about this whole thing? It didn't fix my problem!! :flamemad: Two of the bearings we pulled out were bad, so at least the effort wasn't entirely wasted. Back to the stinkin' drawing board!
DutchVDub was nice enough to help me, so I headed up to his place on Monday. We got everything apart and realized the input bearing in my rebuild kit was wrong. Of course we didn't find that out until it was way too late to find a replacement anywhere... I had to call someone to pick me up and loan me a car so I could get home that night.
Next day I took off work early and returned the rebuild kit. The shop that sold it to me couldn't source the correct input bearing after 45 minutes of trying. I didn't have any better luck calling NAPA and the other stores. The bearing is special order everywhere. Since my rig is my DD and I need to get my loaner car back ASAP, I picked up some used tcases from Stang5lgt and figured I'd just swap the whole back half and be done with it.
Well... after comparing the tcases from Stang to mine, we figured that I probably could have used the rebuild kit and the different bearing in the first place. So we figure since everything is apart we really ought to do it right and rebuild everything rather than slap two used tcase halves together. I keep the loaner and drive home without my rig for a second night...
The next day I re-buy the rebuild kit, but also talk to a tcase/tranny specialist and find that the different bearing won't work after all. Thankfully that guy had the right bearing on hand, so I went and picked it up along with the rebuild kit. I head up to Dutch's and hallelujah we get everything back together and in the Jeep. Then we go to fill it up and I strip the fill plug... Friggin' great! Thankfully Dutch had an extractor kit and was able to get it out. Then we ran into our next problem - no pump or tubes or anything to get ATF into the tcase. It's getting really late at this point, so we roll my Jeep into the street so Dutch can call it a night and I head out to the closest 24 hour Walmart. I finally found something that did the trick and got the tcase filled... at 1:30 in the morning.
I still have the loaner, so I had to leave it at Dutch's and drive the Jeep home. I'll go back tonight with my wife to pick it up and return it.
In summary, this tcase rebuild required:
2 days and 3 nights of my heep sitting in Dutch's garage
4 100-mile round trips to Dutch's... in a 70s F250 that gets about 8 MPG (my loaner)
3 trips to Drivetrain Industries to buy, return, and re-buy the rebuild kit
1 half day off of work
and a TON of inconvenience for everyone involved... Dutch and his wife, my father-in-law (who loaned me his truck), and my wife.
Sorry for the loooooong post. I felt like ranting about this! ...and the best part about this whole thing? It didn't fix my problem!! :flamemad: Two of the bearings we pulled out were bad, so at least the effort wasn't entirely wasted. Back to the stinkin' drawing board!
