I have am doing ball joints and a bearing while I am at it. Looking ahead, what is the best way to get the axles back into the the punkin without damaging the old seals? I am sure there is rust and crud in the axle tube. When sliding the axles in, won't they pickup that crap too?

 

when i did mine i was really careful and all was well.

 

A number of guys have cleaned their tubes using a vacuum but there are some gotcha's. I think if you do a search on front wheel bearings you'll find some useful tips/warnings about cleaning the tubes.

My tubes were clean, I just carefully slid the axles back in, no problems with my seals. Slow and Go.....

 

Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but I never had to pull my axle out of my '02 when I did a hub?

...But anyways, whenever I put axles back in, I push down on em while pushing in, the axle balances on the end of the axle tube and the end never touches the inside.

 

Thanks for the replies so far. I guess I will just be gentle when putting the axles in.

My new to me ball joint press just came in the mail. I did the upper and lower on the passenger side tonight. The only problem I had was the upper kept wanting to get cocked a little crooked. I finally froze it for an hour and it went in smooth.

It is a good thing I am not in a big hurry, it is a good workout and the temps finally got into the 90's.

 

I'm sure you did this already but I use fine sandpaper to clean out the balljoint bore and a light skim of grease/never seize and it will slide in easily, that and a large hammer to smack on the spindle/axel assy the vibration will get the BJ moving when the press wont move the BJ any more, same trick works well when doing U-Joints as well