Or, are these center sections getting heavier all the time???
All I know is, I have bench-pressed my last one into a housing! The three months I spent in the hospital last year seems to have robbed me of whatever strength a 70-year-old geezer is supposed to have, so, I made myself a little "cheater" to install the 8 3/4" third members of various ratios, into my rear axle housing. I have a 2.73; a 3.55; and a 4.10, and they all have their place, but they don't change themselves...
So, now I can install or remove any or all of them without having to lift anything heavier than an electric impact tool!
The red and white jack is a Harbor Freight tranny jack; the orange thing that looks like a first-year, junior high metal-working project is my own contraption.
I made a sling to help lift the center section off the floor, and bought a 4' step ladder and attached a small hand-cranked winch with some light-duty cable with a hook on the end, to the winch to support the third member in the air, while I attach it to the bolt holes on top of the pinion snout (pinion snubber attachment holes). The third bolt is threaded into the parent metal of the bracket, and works to level the 3rd member when you are stabbing it into the housing, so the bolts will be at the right angle to start easily.
Of course, you have to remove the third-member that's already in place, first, but that's just the reverse of what I just described.
Leave it to me to get things backwards... lol!
Anyway, I just thought that if there's anyone else who has trouble lifting these things into place, they might want to duplicate this; it was very easy to build; 3/16" steel plate, and two lengths of 2" X 3" steel angle iron (1/8" thickness.)
There are, as you can see, three bolts on top, and 4 in the bottom to keep it in place on the jack pad. I just drilled 4 holes into the jack pad and ran some 3/8" bolts with nuts on them, at matching locations out the bottom of the jig, so when you set the jig on the jack pad, the bolts go into the waiting holes; there's no reason to bolt it down; it's not going to go anywhere...
A different jack could be used, of course, but these are pretty cheap at Harbor Freight.
Any questions, just email me at billdedman@hotmail.com
Have a good weekend!!!
All I know is, I have bench-pressed my last one into a housing! The three months I spent in the hospital last year seems to have robbed me of whatever strength a 70-year-old geezer is supposed to have, so, I made myself a little "cheater" to install the 8 3/4" third members of various ratios, into my rear axle housing. I have a 2.73; a 3.55; and a 4.10, and they all have their place, but they don't change themselves...
So, now I can install or remove any or all of them without having to lift anything heavier than an electric impact tool!
The red and white jack is a Harbor Freight tranny jack; the orange thing that looks like a first-year, junior high metal-working project is my own contraption.
I made a sling to help lift the center section off the floor, and bought a 4' step ladder and attached a small hand-cranked winch with some light-duty cable with a hook on the end, to the winch to support the third member in the air, while I attach it to the bolt holes on top of the pinion snout (pinion snubber attachment holes). The third bolt is threaded into the parent metal of the bracket, and works to level the 3rd member when you are stabbing it into the housing, so the bolts will be at the right angle to start easily.
Of course, you have to remove the third-member that's already in place, first, but that's just the reverse of what I just described.
Leave it to me to get things backwards... lol!
Anyway, I just thought that if there's anyone else who has trouble lifting these things into place, they might want to duplicate this; it was very easy to build; 3/16" steel plate, and two lengths of 2" X 3" steel angle iron (1/8" thickness.)
There are, as you can see, three bolts on top, and 4 in the bottom to keep it in place on the jack pad. I just drilled 4 holes into the jack pad and ran some 3/8" bolts with nuts on them, at matching locations out the bottom of the jig, so when you set the jig on the jack pad, the bolts go into the waiting holes; there's no reason to bolt it down; it's not going to go anywhere...
A different jack could be used, of course, but these are pretty cheap at Harbor Freight.
Any questions, just email me at billdedman@hotmail.com
Have a good weekend!!!
