rear axle bearing noise

[darryl@xxxx]

I thought I might relate a tale that shows even those of us who have been doing 
this stuff for nearly 17 years occasionally screw up. After finally getting 
BLWNAWY back on the road with its new forged blower pistons, I was hurrying to 
get her ready for the 200 mile drive to a PNDC tech session. I loaded up my 
usual supply of parts for potential sales and fired it up, only to have it die 
after 5 seconds repeatedly. Assuming it was out of gas - I was going to 
install a new DMCH fuel guage sender at the tech session - I tried that but it 
didn't help. After some head scratching I finally fixed a loose wire on the 
main relay, and was off. Two miles away it dawned on me I had forgotten the 
new fuel senders so doubled back home, but also picked up a disturbing new 
sound. Even coasting backward out of my driveway the sound was there. Since I 
have had a bunch of calls lately for new rear axle bearings, I was convinced it 
was my turn for that problem. So I parked the car, and already quite late 
cancelled out on the tech session and went to plan B - a junk yard trip for 
parts for my current restoration of a GMC Jimmy. When I finally got time to 
tackle the bad bearing, I gathered up the necessary parts, tools, jack, and 
jack stands, and headed for the shop. After jacking up the rear end, but 
thankfully before tearing into the axle assembly, I made an embarassing 
discovery. The bearing was fine, but the RH emergency brake cable was dragging 
on the ground. My last maintenance effort was installation of Toby TABs and 
braided stainless brake hoses, which was a frustratingly long project due to 
the fact that the old TABs were frozen in place. After hacksawing off the old 
bolts, removing the trailing arms, drilling out the old bolts, fighting the old 
brake hoses out of their sockets, and installing all of the new parts, I had 
forgotten one last step - fastening the RH brake cable securely in place. So 
just remember, sometimes those strange noises you hear might actually be 
something you failed to finish up correctly on your last repair. To paraphrase 
the old carpenter's saying, check it twice and fix it once.

Darryl Tinnerstet
Specialty Automotive
McCleary, WA