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Once the engine is in the coach, the power has to go somewhere. The first place is this driveshaft. Since FMC's have independent rear suspension with a stationary differential, the drive shaft is very short. From there it goes into the differential and out ..... | ..... through one of the two driveshafts that take the power to the wheels. Here is the left drive shaft with the edge of the differential on the right. In this picture 12 of the 16 bolts that hold the two U-joints on are loose or removed. The four larger bolts that hold it to the axel shaft flange are still tight as I am awaiting the arrival of "Big Bertha", the 650 ft.lb. air impact wrench needed to loosen them. | (1 Comments) The right axel is almost off, one more bolt to go after Big Bertha arrives. The manual calls for 25-30ft.lbs. of torque when installing these bolts. It appears that the last person that lubed the axel bearing put these back on with an impact wrench rather than a torque wrench!! As a side note, this picture shows how my brake line was extended down to the lower wheel cylinder instead of going to the upper wheel cylinder. This can only be done if the line is secured so that it does not get entangled in the drive shaft. | There is limited room between the differential and the first set of bolts. A 3/8" drive socket and ratchet or breaker bar would not fit in the space available. I had made a quick trip down to the local low priced tool source and found this slimline ratchet with 3/8" drive on one end and 1/4" drive on the other end. It helped with this project and, hopefully, will with other projects in the future. |
Since I had a bad outboard U-joint on one side and since now would be the best time to work on them, as preventive maintenance I am replacing all six of the U-joints. This is one of the outboard U-joints. | This is an inboard U-joint. They are both very heavyduty. | Switched over to completing the modification of the GM fuel pickup assembly so that it works with the new 60 gal FMC fuel tank which is 10" deeper than the GM tank. Here you see the assembly split into two halves. | The pickup end (on the right) is pressed against the bottom of the tank by springs embedded into the bottom portion. The springs push on the two rods. I created two 10" rods (the additional depth needed) and two longer copper tubes to hold the rods in place. |
The rods were inserted into the copper tubes and then the tubes inserted onto the original rod ends. Since the assembly is under compression, I then just squeezed the copper tubes at each end with a Vise Gripe pliers so the new assembly would not fall apart when not under compression. | Then sections of fuel grade hose were added to the fuel pickup and fuel return lines to bridge the gap in them. The same will be done with the electrical wires for the fuel guage. Napa fuel pump wiring kit #888536 provided the wires and McMaster-Carr supplied Raychem part # DR-25-1/8-1x6 which provided the diesel resistant shrink tube. I have elected to not change the length of the fuel gauge float arm. That just means that the gauge will read the bottom half of the tank, which is the important half!! | (2 Comments) Here is the mounting flange that was removed from the top of the donor truck fuel tank prepared for mounting to the top of the new tank. You can see the nitrile gasket that will seal everything to the tank when it is flipped over. | The ring on the right will go inside the tank. The holes in it are threaded to accept the 20 ea 10-32 SS bolts that will clamp everything together. The ring is sliced in one spot so that it can be inserted into the tank. Note that before assembling everything, the inside of the tank was wiped clean to remove any acccumulated dust and metal particles. |
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