Peek-A-Boo

It has been awhile since I have posted on the blog and I can't say I've done much on the OC-3. There are a number of things that have slowed things down a bit. First, this is the first time in 5 weekends I've been home. A wide variety of activities have kept me busy the past 5 weekends. However, one weekend was Oliver related. I spent about 8 hours in the seat of my other Oliver, the 550, raking the second crop of hay. I may post a few pictures of Oliver haying in the future.

It is also a bit of a crossroads in the OC-3 restoration adventure. I don't have too much more to tear down and I need to make some decisions about how far I want to go with the restoration. I also need to figure how I'm going to resolve some key issues. How am I going to deal with the broken tooth ? Should I replace the trans/diff case with the extra one I bought or should I repair the old one and "let her buck"? And how am I going to rebuild those rollers?

And then I need to figure out the most cost effective way to order all the parts I need. I'm guessing I'll end up ordering parts from a variety of sources. All of this requires some time and effort to do a bunch of comparison shopping.

I have made some progress recently. First, I was reading in my manual about putting the final drives back together and figured out I need to take the final drive housing/axles off before I can put them back together. So I pulled the axles (washed them up in the parts washer) and turned a wrench to take off the housing. The OC-3 is getting lighter with each step. Notice the before and after.

When talking to fellow OC-3 restorer (and parts source) Mike he said that taking the differential out is relatively easy. I had nightmares of taking it out and having it fall apart into a million gears. Mike assured me that the differential stays together just fine.

So, I decided to go for it. It came out with ease. Now I'm able to give the differential a good scrubbing in the parts washer. It sure beats squirting diesel at it while it sat in the housing. I'm also able to give the trans/diff housing a good scrubbing too.

Next up? I've been thinking about pulling the clutch and installing some new clutch plates. I'm not sure how good the clutch is right now and I cringe at the thought of tearing it down in in the future to re-do the clutch. Right now I'm not too far away from accessing the clutch. It might be worth the time, effort, and dollars.