We need to remove a broken bolt, one of four hardened bolts that hold the leaf spring assembly in place. It's in the lower right of this picture and this is going to be a bear.
A small pilot hole was drilled through the entire length of the bolt in order to get penetrating oil on both ends.
The hole was enlarged, heat was applied, then I grabbed an Easy-out.
A few whacks with a hammer to seat the Easy-out and we are ready for extraction.
Looks simple doesn't it? Trust me, it's editing magic.
With that repair behind us, the differential was cleaned as best as possible before heading to the sand blasting box. Pre-cleaning is done to keep the blast media from becoming contaminated with road grease and grime. It took 3 hours of picking, grinding, wire brushing, and wiping with solvent before it was ready. Just before blasting, kite string was wrapped down behind all 3 yokes to protect the seals.
After sand blasting the strings were removed, primer was applied...
followed by a couple coats of cast iron colored paint.
It looks nice!
Next posting should be the swap out the 1975 rear end for the 1963. Thanks for watching.
Update! After running the numbers it turns out the 1963 differential is really a 1965. Use the Poll in the upper right of this blog to help decide which differential we want to use.
