TARP Blog

I’ve started the repair work on the TARP Special. As it sat on the jackstands in my garage, I noticed a small river (rivulet?) of oil making its way from the car’s nether regions downhill toward the garage door. Upon further inspection, that oil was coming from (go figure) the oil seal that the prior owner allegedly replaced.

I figured I should probably repair his repair to prevent that oil leak. Plus the leaking Red Line tranny race oil is expensive stuff, like $11/qt., and I didn’t really want to see that go to waste. I wish that I could say that I wanted to make sure that we didn’t oil up my driveway, but you guys know a lie when you read one.

To replace the oil seal, one has to remove the differential side gear (which connects to the inboard joint tulip, which connects to the tripod joint, which is connected to the half-shaft, which drives the wheel). To remove the differential side gear, one uses a 3-jaw slide hammer (available for borrowing from your neighborhood Auto Zone). To get the slide hammer in there, one has to remove the entire suspension for the rear wheel. As I’ve said numerous times on this project, thank heavens for air tools.

Once the wheel assembly and strut were out of the way and the brake caliper hung from sturdy steel wire, the side shaft came out easily. There is packing grease all over the underside of the car from when the joint tulip exited the car, so it’s a Mike-Rowe-Dirty-Job working around that area right now.

Next on the list is to remove and replace a snap ring on the side gear, then remove the existing oil seal. Then put in the new oil seal and re-attach everything. Then the car should be driveable again.

Repairs to follow after that will be to pound out the dents from the Houston action and then I’m pretty sure that we should install better driver’s side door bars for safety’s sake.

MR2