fbekholden.com

Smooth is good.

I've heard that

Today was race removal and replacement and painting up the bits to protect and treat rust and reassembly. Getting the steering shaft bearing races out is quite a job and each one required a different approach. The one in the main body is accessible through the gear linkage hole and can be drifted out with a punch. Its awkward but able to be done. The one in the end cap is another story. In the end I used the Dremel to cut through it and levered it out. A 1"1/8 socket is the right size to reseat the new races and also the pitman arm seal. I haven't done the final adjustments but its moving freely from lock to lock and feels pretty snug.
Will paint outer tube tomorrow under heat lamps.

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Hey Brett,
By your description I wonder if you mean the worm thrust bearing cups. Pitman shaft runs in bushes.
Damn thorough job anyway. And thanks for documenting. I’m being less thorough in this department and may need to revisit.
Cheers
Clay


FB ute fixer upper, EK van on rotisserie

Hi Clay. Yep that's exactly what I meant. Lazy me didn't do the post with the diagram in front of me.

Question for gurus: I was going to paint column same colour as inner guards and honeypot thing the same colour as dash top. Is that how they were?

Nice job on the rebuild, love the new grease !!!

Mine was that same colour, Clinka Grey.

Greg

Hi Greg, so the whole column was the top dash colour?

Nice work! I’m sure I’ll be up for this job soon enough myself!
I’m looking forward to hearing how you assemble the gear shift assembly

Thanks Drew. Won't be long. Just got to paint the column first. Also got to check I can fit the assembled column (without the gear lever and indicator lever) through the firewall. I took the honeypot off the column before taking it out of the car when I stripped it. Easy to check.

No problem with the engine out Brett. I wrapped mine in bubble wrap and masking tape to reinstall.

Column and honey pot are originally the same colour, a matte grey, lighter than the clinker grey I would have thought. Never liked the look of them myself.


FB ute fixer upper, EK van on rotisserie

Thanks Clay. I think I'll go matt black on column and clinker on gear and indicator thingys. See how it looks and if I don't like it its easy changed.

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Today was steering linkage reco. Cleaned up bits and replaced idler side bushes, idler arm and ball joint. Stripped down the drivers side and found this groove on the drivers side tie rod ball. Went for a walk in the paddock and pulled one off one of the utes. Found the same groove on that one. Surely it can't be a production feture

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I ditched mine in favour of a HD HR setup. Replacement parts for these are readily obtainable, and they are stronger and less play (my opinion). Vaguely I remember something about the groove. My outer tie rod ends went to someone on here (fraze?).


FB ute fixer upper, EK van on rotisserie

Think Clay, think. What do you remember about the groove???