CreekyB
Silver Member
We were going to get a new truck for me this year because "we" decided that I needed one. I own a 10 year old truck that does just fine and a few older trucks for playing and stuff. I am usually a buy just used enough for the initial depreciation to have happened then drive it till it costs more than a payment a month to keep it running kind of guy.
Anyways, I dreamed up some good projects for the next few years that required a good bit of equipment rentals, along with spreadsheeting what we were already paying in rentals for a bobcat / backhoe per year and the cost of a new ZTR. I used that as leverage to get a tractor and keep my 06 F150 4WD. Got the tractor so I needed to do some maintenance I had been deferring thinking I was going to have to trade it in this year. Mainly brakes, pinion seal had just started weeping and one rear axle seal was leaking enough to make the emergency brake not work. And a tune up. I got the truck with 28K on it and it is now 152K, was on the original spark plugs......
That is all boring stuff but the frustrating and amazing thing that happened today was while pulling the pinion shaft to remove the C clips for the axles so I could get the axle seals done. I removed a very short stub of a bolt that was covered in what looked like yellow locktiteand thought "uh oh" It is usually a stub of a bolt with an unthreaded pin about an inch long on the end to lock the pinion shaft in place.
How am I going to get that thing out? I cleaned the threads internally and noticed it was turning with the stub when it contacted it. Obviously has some threads left on it because I can't fish it out with a somewhat strong magnet on a stick that sits in my tool box. Then I remember I have a small assortment of really strong magnets. I grabbed the stack of 4mm x 0.5mm ones and went back into the shop. It did not work "fishing" it out because of the threads but it felt like it was turning. So I sat that and turned a stack of 40 magnets very slowly for about 10 minutes. And it worked !!!!
I was worried about this one, would have been a bear to drill, and it is right there in the ring and pinion gears.
Wife was unimpressed so I thought I would come here and brag about how lucky I got today
Anyways, I dreamed up some good projects for the next few years that required a good bit of equipment rentals, along with spreadsheeting what we were already paying in rentals for a bobcat / backhoe per year and the cost of a new ZTR. I used that as leverage to get a tractor and keep my 06 F150 4WD. Got the tractor so I needed to do some maintenance I had been deferring thinking I was going to have to trade it in this year. Mainly brakes, pinion seal had just started weeping and one rear axle seal was leaking enough to make the emergency brake not work. And a tune up. I got the truck with 28K on it and it is now 152K, was on the original spark plugs......
That is all boring stuff but the frustrating and amazing thing that happened today was while pulling the pinion shaft to remove the C clips for the axles so I could get the axle seals done. I removed a very short stub of a bolt that was covered in what looked like yellow locktiteand thought "uh oh" It is usually a stub of a bolt with an unthreaded pin about an inch long on the end to lock the pinion shaft in place.
How am I going to get that thing out? I cleaned the threads internally and noticed it was turning with the stub when it contacted it. Obviously has some threads left on it because I can't fish it out with a somewhat strong magnet on a stick that sits in my tool box. Then I remember I have a small assortment of really strong magnets. I grabbed the stack of 4mm x 0.5mm ones and went back into the shop. It did not work "fishing" it out because of the threads but it felt like it was turning. So I sat that and turned a stack of 40 magnets very slowly for about 10 minutes. And it worked !!!!
I was worried about this one, would have been a bear to drill, and it is right there in the ring and pinion gears.
Wife was unimpressed so I thought I would come here and brag about how lucky I got today
