Oil got past while the shaft was out. Give it a couple of weeks before you freak out.

Then clean it good and see what you have. Mine took about a week to settle down.

 

Thanks Pat. Guys, I appreciate all the help. This job wasn't all that bad and highly recommend anyone with the "death wobble" or brake pulls or just weird handling characteristics from the front end to thoroughly check the wheel bearing/hubs for play. Mine showed no warning and I check mine every 6500 miles when I change oil, I rotate tires and do front end inspection. If I have to do this again, the only thing I would change is to make a tool to lock the axle shaft in the axle housing and eliminate that difficulty. Other than that, with the right tools, piece of cake. I had access to a press to press the studs out so that was fairly easy. Without a press, I would imagine that could be very time consuming.
BTW, I went with a Federal Mogul/National hub from Advance. I don't deal with Autozone and Advance has always been good to me.
Thanks everybody.

 

I should check for play in my CTD hubs, as I know all to well what can happen to ill maintained hubs! A decade ago a friend and I were driving from VA beach back home to Oregon in his fairly new at the time Power stroke, that he used off road plenty- and we lost a outer hub berring- it pulled so hard when it locked up that we nearly wrecked at 75mph! then everything felt ok again so We drove it to the next service station and noticed people freaking out as we pulled up to the pump- the plastic 4wd locking hub was on fire! Thankfully a local Ford dealer (Fremont motors in Rawlins WY) got us up and running in one day-

 

FWIW, when we did mine, my buddy had a long stroke impact hammer ( buzz gun ). I had never seen a long stroke in action, I only have a normal short stroke one, and thought to myself, what the heck kind of drugs is he smoking?

That thing buzzed out the hubs once we got them cracked loose, buzzed out the studs, and back in faster than I had ever seen anything go.

Needless to say I have my eyeballs peeled for one to go into my tool box.

 

Could make soooo many comments on that one

 

4lb hammer, no more then 3 smacks each only took about a minute to drive them out... Them long strokes are pretty impressive though huh?

 

4lb copper headed hammer is faster for me even though I have a press.

Dealer price for unit bearings is competitive with the auto parts stores for some reason, probably a mistake, don't leave them out of the bidding.

 

After 150 miles, I'm still getting oil leaking from the axle tube. Looks like despite my efforts to be careful, I damaged the seal. Not sure how to fix that. Got a long trip planned tomorrow.

 

Very common for oil that got past the seal while the axle was out and trapped in the tube to take 500 or more miles to all leak out.
Seal is fine.
They will also leak if the differential is overfilled, factory spec is 3/4" below the bottom of the fill plug.
You can suck the extra out if overfilled or just wait for it to leak out on it's own but it might take quite some time and make a mess.

 

Make sure you put loctite on the 4 inside bolts that hold the hub assembly to the axle.....without it they will wiggle loose!

 

Thanks guys bi will continue to drive and monitor it

 

Huh, I've been anti-seizing them....hasn't come loose yet. I have a hard enough time cracking them loose even with the antiseize I never thought of locktite.

 

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