| Interesting day working on my buddy's SOB [message #254461] |
Sat, 05 July 2014 18:14  |
kerry pinkerton
Messages: 2565
Registered: July 2012
Location: Harvest, Al
Karma:
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Senior Member |
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My neighborhood car buddy bought a 96 Holiday Rambler Alumilite earlier this year and has been working on getting all the little things fixed. One of the things is the rear panhard bar was stripped. He asked if I'd come help him put in the new one and since he is always willing to get dirty helping me, of course I was there.
The panhard bar attaches to the frame on one side and the rear suspension on the other. It's purpose is to keep the rear suspension centered under the body. Read more here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panhard_rod
Anyway, this thing hadn't been touched in 20 years and the bolts were FROZEN big time. We put his impact, then my big impact, then the ceremonial cheater bar on a 3/4" breaker bar on the 1 1/8" nut. Nothing. Of course, every time an impact wrench hit, rust would fall from 'places'.
Finally I said, Beau, it's time for some heat, where's your torch? One side came out fairly easily when we put some heat on the nut. Fairly easily meaning a 4' cheater bar on a 3/4" ratchet and pulling our guts out. Once the nut was off, the bolt was loose.
The other side however was another story. We got the 3/4" nut off using some heat but the bolt was frozen inside the rubber bushing. There is a steel sleeve inside the rubber. Finally, I went home and got my cuttoff tool and cut the sleeve in two places so we could expose the bushing. Then a sawsall was used to cut the rubber away as much as I could. We heated the sleeve read hot but still could not drive the bolt out. I even tried my 9X rivet gun which hits like a 5 lb sledge. Nothing.
After about a hour I told Beau that it was time to torch it out. He was a bit paranoid about that and put a wet towel with sheet metal in front of it to protect things. I put a metal dish pan on a milk crate to catch hot stuff as it fell. 5 minutes with the torch it was out. No harm, no foul, not a scratch on the bracket. Dang, I'm good. LOL!
The new one went in easy...about 15 minutes. We had to shift the coach side to side about 1/4" in order to get the gap the same on both sides but that was pretty easy using a pickle fork as a wedge.
Nasty, nasty job. Worse than anything, I've had to do so far on the GMC.
The other thing he wants me to help with involves replacing rubber lines on top of his gas tank. That's about as hard as doing the GMC. There is an access hole by the tag axle and I can actually get up in there. Beau is a bit too big to fit and claustrophobic to boot. The problem is that while there is an 8" space above 2/3 of the tank, the sending unit and hard lines actually are not in that area and there is only 2" of room. We're going to think about it but it looks to me that dropping the tank might be the easiest way to get to everything.
I've suggested he go ahead and replace all the gas rubber lines while we're at it. His coach is a fuel inject 454 and the fuel line has crimped fittings. I THINK, we can go to a barbed compression fitting and use a hose clamp on the barb...I BELIEVE that will handle the EFI fuel pressure. Thoughts?
Kerry Pinkerton - North Alabama
Had 5 over the years. Currently have a '06 Fleetwood Discovery 39L
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