If you read about the 2000 upgrades, then you know about the motor
& TH400 that made their debut this year. (if
not - click here to check them out) As things were, we had
been rushing for about four months trying to put together the new motor
& tranny, as well as all of the associated projects that come
along. One of the largest milestones was to break in the new motor
& tranny before the first event of the season... Memorial
Weekend. We had everything planned out, brought the truck up to
Chisago for the break-in, and Jason had taken off the day before we had
to bring it up to the event. All was going well until... To
make a long story short, we seized a pinion bearing in the front
axle. To make matters worse, it had chosen the middle of the road
to seize up on. After Jason spent a couple of hours digging,
blocking, and jacking, he finally was able to get enough tension out of
the front axleshafts to take the pucks out of the hubs, and get the
front tires rolling again. The rest of the afternoon and night was
spent tracking down a bearing set and a new gearset to replace the one
that now had the inner race of the old bearing now welded to the pinion
shaft. Fortunately for us, we did get enough running time to get
the motor as broken in as we needed it to be, but we really would have
liked to run the truck more just in case. |
It's difficult to
see, but this shot shows the melted & crunched bearing. It
took over two hours of grinding with the Dremel to free the locked in
roller elements & remove the pinion from the case.
|