When I got a little more time I started tearing down the 8.8" ford rear end again. Just pulled out the bolts that hold on the brake backing plates and axle flanges. You will also have to drill out two rivets to pull the backing plate off.
Here I got the backing plate pulled off of one end of the axle.
And the other end now. Just have to pull off the flanges now.
Now I'm just down to the axle tubes and bearings. I'll wait to replace the bearings untill I get the axle cleaned up and primed with some master series silver.
Just the 8.8" rear end and all the parts I pulled off of it.
And another view.
I wanted to clean the rear end up before I primed it so I wire brushed all the heavy rust off, then scrubed it down with some dawn to get as much of the oil and grease off of it as possible and then I sand blasted it with my little sand blaster I used for the front of the frame earlier.
The rear end is now ready to be primed, and I also got my new brake calipers ready to prime and my brake rotors taped off to be painted with some high temp paint.
Here is the rear end with 2 coats of master series silver primer. It is amazing how much better it looks now. When I get the rear end of the chassis cleaned up and primed I will under coat the rest of the chassis and axle at the same time.
Just another view.
The calipers primed, I put 3 coats on these because I'll keep them silver, just to give a little contrast agains all the black.
I took the axle flanges, backing plates, and leaf spring plates to work, Alcast Company http://www.alcastcompany.com, and put them in one of our steel shot blasters and got them all cleaned up. Here they are ready to be primed.
I also bought a new differential cover because I figured it wasn't worth my time to clean up the old one, they are pretty cheap at www.rockauto.com. It was a bit oily so I cleaned it up, sanded it and primed it with some master series too.
Here I'm priming all the smaller parts, sorry for the bad lighting....... You'll also see my pinion yoke flange. I didn't get the one off of the explorer with this rear end so I ordered one from dennys drive shafts. I was even able to get one for a 1350 series U joint to match my drive shaft.
Just the axle flanges after I primed them. Now I just got to get all this stuff put back together again!
