Guy Can Have His Luck Back!
 

I've had a vibration in the rearend of the Explorer for a little while now that I thought was from the carrier bearings. So Saturday I picked up some new bearings and pulled it apart to replace them. When I got the carrier out I saw that a tooth on the pinion is chipped. So I'm going to have to order new gears and rebuild it.

While it was down I figured it was a good time to replace the leaking valve cover gaskets, which requires removing the upper intake. However, that also means that I have to remove a bunch of other stuff as well. One of those happens to be the EGR tube. While trying to remove it the nut on the header side was a little hard to turn. I soaked it with some liquid wrench and let it sit for a few minutes and then worked it back and forth. As I did I discovered that it was actually twisting the tube on the header and not turning the nut. The only way to get it off was to continue twisting the tube until it broke off.

So after I finished replacing the valve cover gasket I spent yesterday making a new tube to weld onto the header. I cut the old one off of the factory header and then fitted a tube between it and the header. It is really tight space where it is so getting it held and tacked in place was difficult. After I tacked it I removed the header and welded it up and then put it all back together. Everything lined up perfect (which wouldn't have happened for Guy so I guess I'm having better luck) and at least it will be stronger now.

Threaded fittings and egr don't go good together. I've had many problems with them.

No part of your story is "Guy" level luck. Seems to be in the standard Motorgen luck level. I throw pennies into fountains for that level of luck.

"Guy" level is having an odd vibration and pulling the rear cover to find out someone left a flashlight inside or that one of your axles is worn into the diameter of a pencil. Or that your odd tire wear issue turned into a Dana 80 rear axle housing being bent 3.75" off the center of the tube.

You're right but to top it off when I went to slide the axles back in a roller bearing fell out of the passenger side wheel bearing. I'll have to replace that too.

More to add to the luck. Before I order the gears my wife needed to do bills to make sure we I could order them. She told me last night that I could and I was going to order them today. I then get an email from my bank of low funds. My wife accidentally forgot to change the pay date for our house payment so it paid this morning instead of the 1st of next month. So I won't be able to order the gears until next month.

I don't think the new gears are absolutely necessary, a small chip is nothing. I've ran some pretty horrid gear sets before that lasted a long time.

Almost the whole tooth is missing, it's not just a little chip. I'll take pictures when I go to rebuild it. I know I can run it and suffer with the vibration but it's annoying and I have the Cobra running so it can wait until I can pick up the gears.

So more to add. The Mallory box that I bought in October of 2013 went out. Well it's not actually dead but is causing a misfire. If I run the car off the coil only it runs fine. The warranty is only a year so I'll have to buy a new box. It won't be another Mallory box though. At least the MSD one lasted about 8 years.

See, now you're teetering on Guy level luck.

I'm down to one vehicle now because the Cobra is now running rough even running off just the coil. I'm going to take a look at it today to see if I can figure out why. The good news is that I ordered my gears for the Explorer yesterday and they should be here Monday.