Another Ruckstell Rebuilt
Posted: Sun Nov 15, 2020 10:26 pm
After an approximate 9 month rebuild process, my Ruckstell rear end is finally back in my ‘23 Touring. I’ve been waiting to make this post until it was done so I could share what I learned during the process. Since I do not have the extra room or an extra set of hands, I worked on it with my father at his shop. This, and the pandemic, are part of the reason it took so long to complete but there were a lot of unexpected things we encountered along the way.
The reason I decided to tear it down was because it always made a strange sound when rounding corners and picking up speed that someone here accurately referred to as an electric trolley car sound “Rrrrr Rrrrr Rrrr”. Other than replacing the babbit thrust washer years ago, the condition of the driveshaft and Ruckstell parts were mostly unknown.
When we took apart the driveshaft, I removed the Hyatt bearing and was absolutely shocked when it literally fell apart in my hands. Not good! I suspect this was the source of the sound I heard which persisted for years. I’ve driven this car all over the place and I hate to think of the consequences of this bearing violently failing at the wrong time and place.
Please learn from my mistake!
Then began the process of further tear down and rebuilding. Overall, it went very well with just the typical things that inexperienced folks like us run into not having done it before. Here are a few takeaways:
1. Buy the MTFCA rebuild manuals, but make sure you have the latest copies! I bought mine over 20 years ago and they have since been updated with more instructions and pictures. I didn’t realize this until about halfway through the rebuild and the updates would have really helped.
2. We used the suggested method of dropping a socket down in the driveshaft tube to remove the babbit thrust bushing. In the process of beating on the socket, we managed to shear off the rivet heads that hold the universal joint housing to the driveshaft tube. I’m sure some have used this method for years and years and hundreds and hundreds of driveshafts (etc.) with no problems. But if you’re like me and haven’t done any, find a different way of getting it out. There are other forum posts with the same bad result which makes me wonder how many other people didn’t realize that they sheared off the heads. The only thing that gave us a clue was a tiny flattened rivet head on the ground afterwards. My goodness trying to fix this was a time killer. We tried installing new rivets but found it impossible to get them tight enough to the housing to clear the driveshaft. The clearance between the rivet heads and driveshaft is very, very close. We ended up pulling another driveshaft housing out of the parts pile and moving on after licking our wounds. Ironically, it wasn’t until after completely redoing the new driveshaft that we realized the ring that goes around the ball joint was missing. Imagine our horror when we realized that no matter what you do it will not slip over either side of the driveshaft housing. Ahhhh!!! So we had to cut a ring in half and weld it back together. Clearly we would not make any money restoring driveshafts if we had to do it for a living. (Grin)
3. It ended up being a lot more expensive and time consuming than originally anticipated. I planned on only replacing stuff that was excessively worn, but I found myself repeatedly saying “While I’m in here, I might as well...”. The Ruckstell was actually shifting and running fine when it was in the car but we found a lot of the parts were worn beyond recommended tolerances. Nearly everything you can and can’t see in the photo below is new. I was amazed at the quality of the new parts that Chaffins is making. The help I received over the phone from Dave was invaluable.
The driveshaft received similar treatment with a new driveshaft and Fun Projects pinion bearing.
4.When using new axle shafts and new sleeves I found that good condition roller bearings were a very tight fit. The fix was to have the new sleeves professionally honed. The bearings were an easy slide fit after that. See the thread here: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=14966
I would like to especially thank the following people who knowingly (and unknowingly) helped me get the car back on the road: Glenn Chaffin, Dave (Chaffin’s Garage), Stan Howe, Scott Conger, Steve Tomaso, and Adam Doleshal.
And last, but not least, my father! Always ready to take on the next project no matter what it is. Here’s a picture from when we had it apart the first time a little over 20 years ago.
The reason I decided to tear it down was because it always made a strange sound when rounding corners and picking up speed that someone here accurately referred to as an electric trolley car sound “Rrrrr Rrrrr Rrrr”. Other than replacing the babbit thrust washer years ago, the condition of the driveshaft and Ruckstell parts were mostly unknown.
When we took apart the driveshaft, I removed the Hyatt bearing and was absolutely shocked when it literally fell apart in my hands. Not good! I suspect this was the source of the sound I heard which persisted for years. I’ve driven this car all over the place and I hate to think of the consequences of this bearing violently failing at the wrong time and place.
Please learn from my mistake!
1. Buy the MTFCA rebuild manuals, but make sure you have the latest copies! I bought mine over 20 years ago and they have since been updated with more instructions and pictures. I didn’t realize this until about halfway through the rebuild and the updates would have really helped.
2. We used the suggested method of dropping a socket down in the driveshaft tube to remove the babbit thrust bushing. In the process of beating on the socket, we managed to shear off the rivet heads that hold the universal joint housing to the driveshaft tube. I’m sure some have used this method for years and years and hundreds and hundreds of driveshafts (etc.) with no problems. But if you’re like me and haven’t done any, find a different way of getting it out. There are other forum posts with the same bad result which makes me wonder how many other people didn’t realize that they sheared off the heads. The only thing that gave us a clue was a tiny flattened rivet head on the ground afterwards. My goodness trying to fix this was a time killer. We tried installing new rivets but found it impossible to get them tight enough to the housing to clear the driveshaft. The clearance between the rivet heads and driveshaft is very, very close. We ended up pulling another driveshaft housing out of the parts pile and moving on after licking our wounds. Ironically, it wasn’t until after completely redoing the new driveshaft that we realized the ring that goes around the ball joint was missing. Imagine our horror when we realized that no matter what you do it will not slip over either side of the driveshaft housing. Ahhhh!!! So we had to cut a ring in half and weld it back together. Clearly we would not make any money restoring driveshafts if we had to do it for a living. (Grin)
3. It ended up being a lot more expensive and time consuming than originally anticipated. I planned on only replacing stuff that was excessively worn, but I found myself repeatedly saying “While I’m in here, I might as well...”. The Ruckstell was actually shifting and running fine when it was in the car but we found a lot of the parts were worn beyond recommended tolerances. Nearly everything you can and can’t see in the photo below is new. I was amazed at the quality of the new parts that Chaffins is making. The help I received over the phone from Dave was invaluable.
The driveshaft received similar treatment with a new driveshaft and Fun Projects pinion bearing.
4.When using new axle shafts and new sleeves I found that good condition roller bearings were a very tight fit. The fix was to have the new sleeves professionally honed. The bearings were an easy slide fit after that. See the thread here: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=14966
I would like to especially thank the following people who knowingly (and unknowingly) helped me get the car back on the road: Glenn Chaffin, Dave (Chaffin’s Garage), Stan Howe, Scott Conger, Steve Tomaso, and Adam Doleshal.
And last, but not least, my father! Always ready to take on the next project no matter what it is. Here’s a picture from when we had it apart the first time a little over 20 years ago.