The new house is still unfinished, and it lacks a lot of things, especially the kitchen and the furniture that helps to put everything in order, so it is still a mess and there are many cardboard boxes all around, and the container is still full of packed stuff, though for Carmen and me is like living in paradise, especially in the quiet and fresh afternoons. I strongly recommend to those of you who can go live in the country to do it.
The following working session I installed the third shifting fork and the front flange. Proper oil retainers were replaced previously.
The shaft turned pretty smoothly and the feeling was quite sparkling, until I got the side cover of the gearbox and tried to remove the old gasket. It was as hard as rock and stuck to death to the delicate alluminium surface.
To make a long story short, it took me two afternoons working with a pretty sharp spatula to get rid of the rocky gasket without damaging the cover. It was my hands that did suffer a little damage, though.
Ramón, the buider, went out for a couple of weeks in some sort of holydays, and as he returned he resumed the work on the house and the barn/workshop, making his best to deliver some more tasks I assigned to him.
He had almost completed the hinged doors following my design, that he did not completely trust in the beginning but that turned out to work very well. I initially wanted the classic sectional garage door though it would have interfered with the projected bridge crane.
He and his team also resumed the insulation of the walls and the roof of the garage/shop, and the building of the terrace, and the drain of the patio, and the building of the entrance wall, and the making of the front planter, and the instalation of the electric water heater, and etcetera.
Back to the Merkabah, one of hardest tasks remaining in what regards the gear box was to install the big and ugly pin in place. It was particularly difficult because the intermediate gear between both big planetary carriers was pretty mobile and heavy, and introducing the pin back in would need a very stable and solid arrangement to apply pressure from.
I decided to make a platform, an adjustable one, held in place by multiple threaded struts using the thread holes for the bolts of the covers. The same nut that served to pull out the pin would push the pin back in this time.
Went out and bought one meter thread and then made some cuts and weldings. Then, I made a cardboard pantone to set the position of the threads and made the drilling for those and for the threaded bolt still welded to the pin. As usual, an almost forgotten piece of metal served as the base for the pushing device.
It took a while to properly find and lock the pin at the proper angle at which to begin to start to apply pressure, and it was very hard to position the heavy gear manually while doing it. I crushed my fingers a few times doing so.
With a lot of patience I put and took out the steel plate many times and used the lime to change the position of the pushing rod until found the precise angle in which the pin began to move in the proper way.
Turn after turn, it came in millimeter by millimeter, and the improvised manual press stood.
You cannot immagine the joy I felt everytime the pin moved in a little further.
At first it was relatively easy, but in the medium and final steps, as expected, the pressure needed to go on increased considerably and, again, my hands protested. I wanted not to use levers or extensions as I needed to fully feel how, and if, the pin moved and how the press behave.
In the end, after a considerable effort under the pitiless heat of San Felipe’s afternoon -it is plain summer here-, the bloody pin was in its original and useful place and the intermediate gear turned smoothly, rewarding a couple of liters of sweat lost in the struggle. Good.
Eduardo, who would not bet a lot of money for my idea, was pretty happy too. Now it was only a matter of putting the planetary gear cluster housing and the big housing itself back together and assemble the rear speedometer drive housing, and that would be pretty much it. But it was already late in the evening and time to make some order, cover all again with plastic film to protect it from the environmental dust and go home.
It was a good end for the working friday.
I know that many of you are concerned about what is going on not only in Europe and in the USA, but everywhere else. Some may not be fully aware of how big this really is and how it can affect our lives, though it will soon be impossible to ignore it.
Big things are on the move these days, especially in the next few days, but rest assured that everything will be okay in the end. The roads are never easy, and that's why we keep building and modifying our vehicles and modelling our spirits with hard work and travels.
Keep the faith in whatever good you believe as the Big Boss has put the right people in charge of what needs to be done. Stay calm and confident, it is going to be okay indeed, and we will sooner than later have the opportunity to enjoy life, our trucks and the world free as ever.
Regards from Chile.