bluecab

Got the rest of the exhaust on yesterday. Going to leave it a little loose until I can run the car and check for clearances when it is on its wheels.

Starting on the drive shafts, cleaned and painted the output shaft assembly that extends under the oil pan.

It has a bearing in it and in section 3EC-4 -6 of the CSM it shows the procedure for pressing off the slinger and replacing / repacking the bearing.

I don't have a press and the bearing in there feels smooth and tight.

Can any of you Toro guys advise me on whether this is a "must do"?
Does this bearing go bad?

Should I leave it and hope for the best?

Anecdotes and advice needed!

TripDeuces

The only thing I had go bad on my axles were the outer rubber boots surrounding the CV joints. I had the local Olds dealer at the time replace the boot on that side. Never had a problem with the axles other than that.
It's my opinion the Toronado front ends were over-engineered, and maybe for a reason. They are just beastly in design. I'm part of the 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' camp on this.

bluecab

George, I like your thoughts on that. I scrubbed it up and shot some matt black on it. I'll clean the seal surface with some crocus cloth before installing it so that the seal on the diff does not suffer





Next I need to get the old wheel bearings off and put new ones on. It seems there was a GM tool made for this and then improved upon by various GMC motorhome club members, the last being Tom Warner who appeared to improve on the original tool and had quite a few made for GMC club members. This tool is now produced and sold by Applied GMC, a motorhome specialist in California.The motorhome folks seem to want these bearings repacked or replaced at 25k mi intervals. This makes me chuckle after reading the many dire warnings on the Toronado Owners Association forum about aftermarket wheels and improper offsets wearing out the bearings. As far as I can see the GMC Motorhome uses the same knuckles, ball joints and wheel bearings and has a gvw of up to about 12000lbs.

Has anybody got an alternative? Anybody have a puller I can rent? Ideas?

bluecab

Here's the seal surface after some polishing.

Not real pretty, hope it does not spit hypoid all over the place as I did not replace the seal either...

bluecab

Also took my hubs and wheel bearings into a local independent today. Asked if he had a tool to remove and replace the wheel bearings and he said yes, so I dropped the box of hubs and bearings off with the hope that the procedure will go well. Especially after reading all the GMC motorhome blogs about special tools needed. Nearly every car is FWD now, how hard is it to pull the bearings off of the new ones?

Not sure what's up with Tinypic, the photo hosting site. just saw the Audi pic that is posted in my exhaust description. no idea why that is there??

bluecab

Timb,

The cam is an Erson. .476 lift intake/exhaust, 290deg duration intake/exhaust.

The motor sounded lopey and rough on the stand as it was lean at idle, I'm going to enrich the idle circuit for a smoother idle. It won't sound as tough, but it will run better..

timb

skf may make a repair sleeve for that but you would have to make the tool that installs it .the one that come with the sleeves would not be long enough.

if its not too hard to install i would change the seal .i have put new seals on worse and they held fine.

i hope your pics hold up .you posts are a reference for me .

bluecab

While I am waiting to pick up the front hubs and bearings, I got back on some interior work, I need to fabricate seat frames for the front seats and I wanted to have the wiring laid in so that the frames do not interfere with the wiring.
There are wire chases on both sides of the floor pan. I started with the passenger side as what is going there is all accessory wiring, the driver's side will get the standard GM harness. I am not sure what I will need for wiring so I put in a 4 way trailer harness cable , two four way speaker cables, and a 22a 4plex that might be used for digital switching





I also installed the covers for the rear chassis to body mount bolts. I had fabricated these last spring but never got around to installing them.
They are not pretty but at least if I ever need to get to the nuts again it won't take much work.



And last I put in that panel that goes behind the seat to hide the springs and seat guts. I made this one out of corrugated plastic which I like much better than the heavy, nasty hunk of tar based stuff that was there. It will not provide the sound deadening that the original did, but that one crumbled in my hands when I removed it to work on the floors and trunk.

nonhog

Hey use what works! That's cool, just wondering could it possibly squeak?
(on the corrugated plastic)

timb

looks great . where did you get your rear brake hose?

bluecab

Tim,
The hose and the hard lines came from inline tube who are the only company who claim to have a set of patterns for the early toros.
Left and right rear were ok, the flex hose I thought was a bit short and the front to rear line seemed ok, but I had to straighten it out some at the rear to get the flex line to fit.
There is a crossover line in the front that I never did figure out the position of before I put the trans and engine in.
I just bought a 25' roll of cupro-nickle tube to finish up the system when I get to that point.
Here's a shot of what comes in the box....

harascho

Hey David,

it's comming together, great !

I know how it feels when the engine fires up after a rebuilt, lots of money and countless hours... enjoy it!

Some thoughts to your axle shafts:

Given the wear on the seal surfaces on the shafts I would recommend replacing both shaft seals in the differential. You will find the parts at the GMC Motorhome sites. Pay attention, the driver side seal has vent holes which have to be placed upwards.
On the shafts you have 2 possibilities: First of all they have to be turned in a lathe to even the seal surface. I would then check dimensions by placing a greased seal onto the shaft. If the sealing lip's diameter is still smaller as the shaft and it is spread a certain amount when pushing onto the shaft you are fine. If the surface was worn that the lathe action removed a lot of material you will have to use a sleeve. I am not sure if that could fit over the splines at the shafts end...maybe....

Anyway, the seals surface shouldn't be polished at all. The surface for a shaft seal has to have a certain quality to break in the seal. To rough it eats the lip away, too smooth, the oil finds a way out. I always use 120 grid paper and schratch the seal surface at an angle so that the turning action of the shaft and those scratch marks push the oil on the shaft ( seen from inside the case..) away from the seals lip. Some high quality seals have those oil directing patterns on the lip.

good luck

I will send some pics if I find some to explain what I was writing...

Harald

harascho

Some pics to the differential seals.

Harald

bluecab

Thanks Harald.
Great to have the part numbers and source too!

bluecab

Cleaned up the inside bore of the spindles with a scotchbrite wheel that just happened to be the perfect diameter.
I'm going to take these to the shop that is doing the bearings as I'm not sure if they need to be pressed in or are a slip fit. The CSM is no help on this.

bluecab

Tested the main Olds flat cable that runs front to back to be sure it was working and then laid it in. I wanted to have all of the cables on both sides that run under the carpet and over the hump installed before I started on the seat brackets.

bluecab

I'm using a pair of Recaro seats that will need brackets on all four corners instead of the original bench seat brackets that are only located on either side of the floor pan.

bluecab

To center the seats, I located the centerline of the steering wheel bracket and took measurements from there. I will fabricate adaptor brackets for the existing mounting points and am welding mounting studs made from flat bar stock and threaded rod for the new brackets that will support the inside corners of both seats.

bluecab

Still working on the seat brackets, the rear center ones are welded in, now to get the removable outer adaptors to line up and sit level with the center ones.


( no matter what the orientation of the photo in my computer, Tinypic orients photos according to something that must be imbedded in the code from the photo. I tried everything but upside down on this one and it came out in the same orientation each time... Any Techies out there care to comment/help/explain?)

bluecab

bluecab

No photos or updates today.
However Today is 5 years since I dragged this beast home!

Paxtonshelby

Technically that is an update!! :-)

bluecab

Got the rest of the adaptors made up for the seats today and test fitted a seat.
The brackets still need paint and some finish work but the setup seems to work. I had forgotten that the seats have a series of bolt holes to vary the height. That may be useful for final adjustments.

nonhog

Hoping for an update?

TripDeuces

Reminds me of the brackets I had made up for the company I worked for in Seattle. We had huge bus seats in these entertainment modules we made. Everything was custom. When I walked into the welding shop and told him I needed 86 of these he was like WTF! Lol

bluecab

Well, been distracted with another car project..

I did put the seats in as it is the best place to store them away from potential damage..

Finally got the drive shafts and spindles on, and then dithered over the lug studs for a while as the stock studs are a little short for the alloy wheels I am using and I kept looking thru the bewildering array of possibilities.

In the end I bought stock studs from Rockauto and they were a little bit longer so may work out ok.

Now I need to get the fender liners on and see how close the tires are.

Pics to follow!

bluecab

Trying to finish up a bunch of small stuff.

Installed my multi element Wink mirror ( remember those? well they still make them!)and painted the dashboard so I can install the Instrument panel



Also installed new vent hose as the old hoses fell apart when I touched them.
The hoses that feed the defroster vents are 2.5in. I then discovered the hose needed for the dash vents is 2.75in. Now waiting for a shipment of hose..



Also bought a 14' hunk of 2/0 cable to feed the starter from the battery in the trunk and waiting for cable ends to arrive for that.

bluecab

Here's a shot of the trunk with battery box installed. The surround is aluminum angle riveted to the pan. The box is a marine style that will take a bigger battery than I have at the moment, there will be a 200A fuse in between the battery and 2/0 feed cable to protect against shorts. The rest of the cables in front of the battery are feeds for data, power and speakers I laid in when I put the sound deadening in. not sure if I will need them all, but it was easier than having to put them in later.

bluecab

Making up ground straps. This one will go from the starter mounting bolt to the frame. I use a Hydraulic crimper from (HF) with dies that I had machined so that it will crimp up to 4/0 cable ends as that is what I usually use at work.

Still trying to decide how to do the grounding in the rear as the frame only goes part way back and the body needs grounded, too. Thinking of a long strap to the frame so there is no voltage drop when I'm spinning up the 425.

bluecab

Just a quick update: I have moved and spent most of the spring and summer packing and all that. The Toro is slated for a flatbed ride to the new house from the old one soon. The list of projects involved in moving are daunting to say the least, but I have plans to get the new garage insulated before it gets cold so I can continue the build

RetroRanger

good luck w the new garage the build looks nice so far

danifer

@bluecab - This is a fantastic build thread, and your photos have been very valuable. Thank you for taking the time and effort to post it!