Greetings!
There were a couple of challenges to overcome yesterday as the engine was being removed from the '51 Chevy Business Coupe. I whined about one of them in last night's post, referring to the 8 bolts requiring removal before the driveshaft could be separated from the transmission. Eight bolts are not a lot of bolts, the problem was that they were obscured by the exhaust tubing, the emergency brake linkage and the transmission crossmember.
The first picture shows the view from underneath the car looking forward at the tailshaft housing of the transmission. The large knuckle in the center of the picture is the joint of the tailshaft to the driveshaft, held together by 4 bolts. By removing the bolts, the sleeve shown at the right-center will slide back to reveal the protected and lubricated U-joint within the knuckle.
This is a view taken at about the same perspective after the initial 4 bolts have been removed and the housing slid back to reveal the large, round tip of the driveshaft and the well-lubricated U-joint. You can see two of the four bolts securing the caps to the U-joint ends. Each bolt has at least one metal lip bent up along side the bolt head to prevent it from loosening. This is a good idea, unless your goal is to encourage it to loosen. A screwdriver and ball peen hammer opened up the metal lips around each bolt and then I had to wedge a long screwdriver between the U-joint cap and the driveshaft yoke to move it to one side enough to allow me to get a swivel socket on a long extension into place to remove each bolt. As you can see, only two bolts are accessible at a time. When these two were removed, Chris rotated the engine by turning the engine fan until the other two bolts were exposed so I could repeat the procedure until all four were out.
Even with all four bolts removed, I had to re-use the long screwdriver to slide the yoke over enough to remove one of the clamps from one side of the U-joint. That allowed enough room to slide the yoke back to the other side enough to remove the other clamp. That done, the driveshaft didn't fall down to the floor, but rather it stayed suspended by the positioning of the rear axle. You see, the rear axle housing is attached to the driveshaft housing. The driveshaft itself spins within the housing in a lubricated environment. The driveshaft and rear axle will need to be removed as one unit. That's one of my chores today.
Another obstacle was the lack of stout bolts on the passenger side of the engine. We needed a strong bolt to attach the hoist chain onto allowing us to lift and remove the heavy engine and transmission. Chris offered to go back to town and buy a longer bolt just for this task. In the meantime, I found a sturdy metal bracket and we bolted the bracket to the headbolt in the engine and attached the lifting chain to the bracket. I made a video showing this but its so jerky you'll think I drank my lunch. Needless to say; we had a successful evening and I'm grateful for Chris' help and looking forward to the next step!
There were a couple of challenges to overcome yesterday as the engine was being removed from the '51 Chevy Business Coupe. I whined about one of them in last night's post, referring to the 8 bolts requiring removal before the driveshaft could be separated from the transmission. Eight bolts are not a lot of bolts, the problem was that they were obscured by the exhaust tubing, the emergency brake linkage and the transmission crossmember.
The first picture shows the view from underneath the car looking forward at the tailshaft housing of the transmission. The large knuckle in the center of the picture is the joint of the tailshaft to the driveshaft, held together by 4 bolts. By removing the bolts, the sleeve shown at the right-center will slide back to reveal the protected and lubricated U-joint within the knuckle.
Even with all four bolts removed, I had to re-use the long screwdriver to slide the yoke over enough to remove one of the clamps from one side of the U-joint. That allowed enough room to slide the yoke back to the other side enough to remove the other clamp. That done, the driveshaft didn't fall down to the floor, but rather it stayed suspended by the positioning of the rear axle. You see, the rear axle housing is attached to the driveshaft housing. The driveshaft itself spins within the housing in a lubricated environment. The driveshaft and rear axle will need to be removed as one unit. That's one of my chores today.
Another obstacle was the lack of stout bolts on the passenger side of the engine. We needed a strong bolt to attach the hoist chain onto allowing us to lift and remove the heavy engine and transmission. Chris offered to go back to town and buy a longer bolt just for this task. In the meantime, I found a sturdy metal bracket and we bolted the bracket to the headbolt in the engine and attached the lifting chain to the bracket. I made a video showing this but its so jerky you'll think I drank my lunch. Needless to say; we had a successful evening and I'm grateful for Chris' help and looking forward to the next step!
Thanks for looking!
Doug
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