Maintenance is a problem for me...

I have beat the crap out of my little Jeep for 3 years with virtually no maintenance, so now I'm paying the price...
It's more or less a 'Farm Vehicle' in the summers for me, so it's in crap about every day, and gets a good dose of mud and hard use, especally when it rains!
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Dropped the front diff cover, and it looked like a curdled chocolate milk shake in the differential!
I've never seen one this bad that still worked! (and I'm ashamed to say that!)

So I get to taking a closer look, and I find a hard crust of debris in the bottom of the housing that I did not notice three years ago when I did initial maintenance.

That means an EXTENSIVE clean out, some new axle seals, and a check on the pinion seal to find out where the water is getting in...

During this check, I find a piece of wire sticking out of the front seal... That means certain death to any seal,
So I go to pull yoke so I can I can get to the front seal...

Floppy U joint ($40),
And the pinion is walking in and out about 0.030" or 0.040"...
So that's a $40 shim pack and another $60 worth of bearings to set the gear set back up.

Took the carrier out, shot bearings on the carrier, $25 each, and this is turning into a real nightmare!

I've had disc brakes laying around here for ever intended to go on this axle, so this is a good time to put them on,
$80 for ball joints, another $45 for bearings for the new hubs and $30 for spindle seal & bearing kits.

So while this is all in the works, Kerry looks at me an says,
"This is a REAL good time for a locker and springs....

There goes another $800 for 'lunchbox' locker in the front and new springs for this little sagging Jeep...
You have to remember, I didn't give but $500 for the entire Jeep!

So now I'm waiting for parts to get here...
So while that's happening, I decide to put on new rear break lines...
And of course the 35 year old brake lines desegregated while trying to remove and reinstall...

That leads to taking the fuel tank out and noticing the pinion is leaking in the back!

So here we go with taking the REAR axle out now, new springs, bushings, brake lines, full rebuild of the brakes, new axle bearings/seals and tightening up the pinion bearings and installing new seals...

Now I find out the rear tank skid plate is rotted through, and what I've been seeing as 'Skid Plate' is actually coal mine black shale mud sticking out!

Waiting on MORE PARTS!

So what turned out to be 'Quick Maintenance' has cost me a fortune and taken two weeks already!

So what I'm basically winding up with is two freshly rebuilt axles, one freshly installed fuel tank, all new brakeing system....

Two weeks into this and I'm STILL not done, and I have a DRY checking account!

The moral of the story is...
When you do 'Maintenance', KEEP UP ON IT or you will be a 'Dilbert' like me when it's time to finally FIX something!

Ouch man... Thats really bad.

When I bought my jeep last June it wasn't nearly that bad.. But I got lucky

When I opened my differential covers.. What might have been gear oil at some time came out in a kinda half liquid half solid mud form.

The transmission was drained and towards the end I had more of this black mud coming out. To make it even better when I popped the plug on the Transfer case I found that nothing came out at all. So I filled the T-case back up only to find all the fluid on the ground the next morning... and I mean ALL of it.

So I got a new seal, didn't work, well I dont leak as bad now. I need to replace the cone shaped thing on the end of my NP231, I have the cone and the seal, but I was told that upon doing the repair I may find that I need to replace one of the shafts that may be causing my problem to begin with.

The engine... well that was a whole other story. Black spark plugs, plug wires that were fried, Clogged up carb, nice and chunky oil, and as some might remember the identity problem I had a couple months ago figuring out what I had in there.

Gone a long way since then... mostly thanks to you guys!

Good luck on your fix TR... Remember, Just Empty Evert Pocket..

-Phoenix

Yup, just beating the wallet up again!
I call it 'Jeep Poor'!

Anyway, another $250 worth of parts just came in, so I'm off to the garage!

Drive on. You're doing a fine job. Thanks for coming in today. This is the heart and soul of the true Jeep owner. Fix and improve the thing yourself. What part can you NOT buy for a Jeep?

I had an old bomb of a Lincoln. Got as good oil mileage as it did gas mileage. I was swapping snow tires on rear, saw a wet spot on the gas tank. Wiped it with my rag....started peeing gas onto the ground. A big sheet metal screw for temp fix. New gas tank, hoses, straps......for my beater....Oh well.

Have fun with the that TR. Let up know how it goes, im curious to see how all the problems get fixed. Makes me want to go out and wrench on mine...

In all likelihood most of your problems could have been avoided had you checked your fluid levels regularly. Bummer!

You going to adapt your pressurized distributor setup to the gear cases? Want links to my schemes for putting zerks in the front hubs and rear axle bearings? I just had the back apart to replace the locker, and the grease in the bearings was good as new, over a year later.

Links would be great Jim!

I put grease zerks in the rear (D-44) and packed them full of grease before I bolted them the last little bit in place...
I didn't cut the flange like you did to install the 'IN' Zerk,
I just put a Zerk between bearing and inside seal, so now I have to pop the outside seal out a little so the grease has somewhere to go when I'm flushing bearings...

As for checking fluids, I did check them pretty regularly until this last back problem,
And I lent my little Jeep out several times,
Looks like it was used MUCH harder than was reported.

Anyway,
Kerry has both diffs serviced, fresh gear lube in both,
Fresh pinion seals in tomorow,
Fresh U joint in front drive shaft,
Used, but good 20 Gal fuel tank and skid plate,
Fresh sending unit (Checked before install!)
Stand alone ignition featuring Motorcraft distributor and HEI module, E-core coil and we did our best to seal out some water in this coil!

I have freshly rebuilt front diff, everything new besides housing, carrier and ring/pinion,
New disc brakes in the front,
New springs with 3" lift
(I wanted smaller lift, but it was stock or 3"... Should have stayed stock after I've seen this thing on 31" tires!)
New rubber all the way around (Purchased before new springs or I would have gone 33" with this much lift)
New exhaust all the way back,
Serviced transmission, transfer case, rear differential with new pinion seal and new axle bearings & Seals...
New shocks...
And I'm adding a sway bar with disconnects I had laying around here (off of Kerry's Jeep) to improve the highway/side road manners of this little dude...)

Mine is also getting new fuel tank, skid plate, all new rear brakes (Except drums, never seemed to have been touched since the last brake job back in '73! )

So I'm FINALLY going to have decent brakes, tires, ect. on the little jeep for the first time since I've owned it!
(And if it wasn't for Kerry, I wouldn't be getting this much done! Us two crippled bastards about make ONE 'Normal' person!)

Anyway, I'll be back on the road with the little jeep by the weekend,
And then we can start on the dedicated 'Off Roader'...
Which HAS been serviced since we drove though the floods last year!
Deep water = mandatory maintinance!

Maybe I'll even remember to put in my new speedometer cable this time around!

Sounds like everything worked out great for ya TR..

A lot of that stuff you just did is planned for my YJ, its needs ton of work as well.

Glad to see everything worked out for the best!

I couldn't find the post here, so I e-mailed the text to you.

Thanks Jim!
I got the email...

Yup, quite a challenge since this thing has had very little maintinance before I got a hold of it, but I think it's going to do just fine for me.

Anyway, been working on Kerry's Jeep pretty regularly.
Quite a few things that needed attention,
Now that we are in the home stretch with it,
I'm getting ready to spend some time on mine again.