1971 K10 Stepside - Getting a Roller Roadworthy

[pjmoreland]

I'm waiting for parts to arrive for the front axle, so I worked on the rear axle today. I disassembled it, gave it a quick cleaning with a wire wheel, and sprayed some paint on it. I will be replacing the perches later, so I left that portion unpainted.

Someone did some crazy shimming on this axle at some point. The pinion and carrier shims were mangled. It appears that they enlarged the bearing IDs so that they'd be a slip fit.

I installed new bearings and started the process of setting up the gears. I had to start from scratch on the shims. I did one pattern, and the pinion was too deep, so I adjusted the pinion shim and did another pattern. It still needs some refinement.