Complication rears its ugly head

[Frozen Parts]

If you saw "Still taking it apart" well, I'm still taking the '53 apart. The original goal was to put tires and brakes on the old beast. I got all the brake parts off, and decided that I should probably maybe take a gander at the seals and bearings being since I was already in there. I pulled apart the left front corner and got the hub, bearings and seals out and cleaned everything up. Bearings useable, seals, meh, bushings real sloppy. (Had to look didn't yah.)

Now that I could see in there (No, No don't look!!) I didn't care for the look of the grease in the knuckle. Nor did I like the play in the thing when I latched on to it at 1200 and 1800 and wiggled it. So I'm cleaning it up before I take it off, and I come across a big gob of baked on crud at the top of the upper knuckle half where it joins up with the steering arm. Wait a minute...this is awfully hard mud...What the @$#%! Some genius had welded. Welded? Yes welded the @#$%^& steering arm onto the *&^%@# knuckle. (I told you not to look!)

Some people should never be allowed near anything with moving parts. All I can hope for is that from the awful gooberfication of the weld that there was poor penetration and I will be able to grind off the welds and save the parts. Sheesh!

[Chris Olson]

Well.... you have to admit it is better to find out about the Bubba fixed knuckle in your own shop than to find out about it on the road!

[Frozen Parts]

Heh! This is one of the interesting things about messing with an old vehicle that has been through a lot of hands. I also found that at some point someone, possibly the Mad Welder, had lost the locknut for the adjustment screw on the side of the back pumpkin. You guessed it...staked with a welder.

[Desoto61]

Heh! This is one of the interesting things about messing with an old vehicle that has been through a lot of hands. I also found that at some point someone, possibly the Mad Welder, had lost the locknut for the adjustment screw on the side of the back pumpkin. You guessed it...staked with a welder.

Even if the lock nut was present it's still supposed to be tack welded to the carrier. The tech manual specifies

To prevent change of adjustment, tack weld thrust screw and drive gear thrust screw check nut to drive pinion carrier.

(TM9-8231-2 Chapter 6, section IV, Paragraph 97.g)

[Cheyenne Dave]

I have worked several early B-1's and WDX's whos thrust screws-and-jam-nuts were never welded...made my day!

CD

[Desoto61]

Both of mine had pretty light tack welds, I was easily able to cut them without sever damage to the threads. Since my welding skills aren't anything to brag about I usually weld the crap out of stuff, but I took it easy on those in case someone ever had to go back in.

[Frozen Parts]

Well, as it turns out, the welds on the knuckle had lousy penetration and it was no big deal to clean them off with a grinder and knock the steering arm off. After that, I found that three of the bolt holes were wallowed which probably has something to do with the thing getting welded. It was probably either a get home or a get by deal. There are a lot of places up here where there is no source of parts or support and you have to make do. Another case of Alaskan engineering! I was able to build up the bolt holes and re tap them. I hate to toss a casting for one of these rigs as there are no more when they are gone. We never throw anything away.

[Greg Coffin]

A Helicoil would be the perfect remedy for those damaged threads. Good Luck!

[Frozen Parts]

It looks like I have saved the casting. A bit of grinding, a bit of work with the wire machine... I filled the wallowed part of the bolt holes and re tapped them. Whew!