Ok, had everything apart except the U-Joints, time to clean the 40 years of grime off everything, oh joy. Took about 6 hours bathing in a pail of gas (use what ya got) a couple wire brushes, i had a solvent brush but it fell apart, small screwdriver to scrap away in tight areas and a larger scraper for the open areas. while i was in the gas i got my surface stone and took down any raises edges or burs on the flange or mating surfaces, after that everything got a 15 minute bath in oven cleaner then rinsed with a garden hose that i dragged out across the yard so the sun would be beating down on it to make the water warm. I left them to dry in the hot sun and of course they all flash rusted.
Next I it was time to remove and replace the tie rod ends so i chucked one end into the vice and counted the exposed threads first, then started saturating it with Kroil, I put my largest pipe wrench on the rod end and couldn't budge it, so i got the Burnzomatic torch and put about 5 minutes of heat to it, it still wanted to just pull the rod right out of the vice, so i put a second pipe wrench on the rod and against the work bench to help hold the rod still and another 5 minutes with the torch and i was able to brake it free, at that point i kept saturating the threads and put the nut back on the end and used a wrench to work the rod end all the way in first then i worked it out, the reasoning to loosen up any crud left in the 40 year old threads and clean then out, then cleaned up the threads with carb cleaner (use what ya got) and a blast of air. i spread a liberal amount of anti seize allover both the rod and rod end before threading it together, I worked it around a little to ensure i could move it by hand, then left it at the same thread count as the old end.
I then flipped the rod over to do the same to the other side, i tightened the vise real tight the grabbed the pipe wrench to put on to the rod next to the vice, i stopped and looked at the vice and said to my self "I cant believe that vice hasn't broke yet" and then just like that, as if on Que it snapped!
Oh well time for a new better vice, don't know if i should go to sears or Harbor freight..
So time to clean up the area a bit and make a shopping/things to get list and that was the end of an 8 hour day.
Note to self: You work swing shift and if its hot and sunny you need sun screen and possibly even a hat! Yea you guessed it, i got a tad bit burnt today.