Thiss

I have been present for four critical bearing failures. All were not my vehicle, nor mine to maintain, and all could have caused death. So in short, it is probably my greatest fear when it comes to vehicle maintenance.

So I am going to talk my way though my ineptness and swallow my ego, or else I will kill my ego, and my budget, by hauling the truck down to the friendly brake shop and spend a ridicules amount of money.

I have been working on my own front end, which I did last year and has since failed because I didn't follow option 1 or 2 in the sticky regarding grooved spindles and seals. My bad. I set the new seals 1/16th deeper.

Now, setting the bearings. I found the old ones less than finger tight, a bit concerning. So I naturally set them too tight, under the advise of the machine shop friend and mechanically inclined neighbor. For this, I sheared the pin off the lock nut and toasted the inner bearings.

Now, with torque wrench in hand I have been following Dana Corps manual, that says set to 50 lbs. and back not more than a quarter turn. This is where they sit. I drove today and found the brake rotors pretty hot. I am concerned this isn't right.

Should I have been following this guideline:

FRONT wheel-bearing adjuster (inner)nut:
Step 1: To seat, torque nut to 50(lb-ft) while spinning hub.
Step 2: Back off, then torque to 35(lb-ft) for automatic hubs,or 50(lb-ft) for manual hubs.
Step 3: Back off 3/8-turn for automatic hubs, and just enough to free the bearing for manual hubs.

I already plan to go back into both hubs and also even pull one off completely, because I have since realized the sin of using old races and plan to fully repent my actions. I thought the risk of messing up the bearing was greater than using an old one that seemed good. I now know I am wrong. One side has two new bearing with new races. The other an old race with new bearing and then a set of old.

So here is my folly and me learning the hard way. I just don't want to learn the real, sudden, deathly, hard way.

Lately, I keep wondering who let me do a conversion? How did I pull that off, but yet I can't service a hub assembly?

Last little Murphy, the Jeep needs front hubs and bearings too. Oh boy, at least they come as an assembled set. I hope I can manage that one.

Thiss

Can the inner bearing that I ran in the old race, for about 10 miles, be salvaged ?

93-12Smoke

If you took it for a drive and the front rotors were hot, how hot were they? Electric motor hot or sizzle water hot? The brakes generate a fair amount of heat anytime you apply them.

NJTman

I've found that the mixture of old races and new bearings are a cause for concern.

The old races and new bearings are not necessarily made to the same specifications, so they don't always fit together. Personally, I always change the races, but I'm just **** about how I do things. Manufacturers have the ability to alter design, pitch, spacing and physical measurements or specifications on their products, so the new bearings you put in might not seat on the old races, causing failure within a few miles.

(Not blasting you, just making a point)

In my truck, when I bought it, the P.O. had done exactly this. By looking at the parts on the truck (without removing the race) it all looked fine. With the races out, you could see how it wasn't.

Here are pictures to show you why you don't just assume what you have in there is right, and the worn surfaces would show you this.

https://www.dieseltruckresource.com/...t=bearing+mind

Thiss

All new bearings and races on the driver side. All going good, until I look for the lock pin on the spindle nut. It was there when I put the nut on hand tight. Broke off while torquing, even with the correct socket.

I cleaned out the hub and the bearing to try and find the little bugger, but it is nowhere to be found.

In absence of using every swear word in the word... Sigh.

Thiss

Thanks NJT for posting, I had read your thread last night, but it came with no pictures when the search engine pulled it up. Looking at the pics convinced me I better do it right.

NJTman

I had no idea that the p.o. had his bearings replaced WRONG. When I went to the parts store, I had the bearing and race in hand. I never thought to put the two together to see if they mated properly. Neither did the P.O.

When I discovered the damaged bearing surfaces, and race surfaces, I started to wonder what happened. That's when I went back to the parts store, and asked them to look it up by application. It was there that the race / bearing combinations were different part numbers. When I put them together, the light bulb came on, and I realized that the bearings that were installed were too deep into the race and not riding properly angle relationship wise. This is what caused the bearings to disintegrate.


Funny part was that this guy drove the truck from WA to CA to FLA to NJ. What is that? 5k miles ???

Yeah, it was grinding when I test drove it, but I had no idea that the bearing was as bad as it was, and I drove it home and around for a few days before tackling the repair.

NJTman

Are you talking about the twin nuts with the washer with all the holes that sits between the two ?

Thiss

Yeah, I had an extra spindle nut with the pin just pushed in. I drove the pin back out and got her in. Now for a drive.

diesel402004

Well.....Don't want to jinx myself or anything, but my method over the last 18yrs and two trucks of tightening the nut by feel and turning back a skosh has not caused any issues. I disassemble all the wheels regularly (for various reasons), so this method has been deployed a lot. My rotors do get hot at various times but always attributed that to caliper drag. Brakes work great with normal pad wear, so I don't think the warm rotors are abnormal.

1STGENFARMBOY

I also have installed many many wheel bearings, I turn the hub and snug the nut until a feel a bit of resistance, then back it off a bit, make shure there is zero movement back and forth though. I like the tiny bit of drag.

at work we set the 3-4,000 dollar SKF's in big faulk gear boxes with an indicator, but to me that's just for the ISO paperwork, plus they see some intense heat.

never had a failure due to setting, just low on fluid

Thiss

Thanks guys. The hubs have new bearings and races and I feel confident they are good and put together right.

However my front end still sounds like a wash tub. I didn't go into one side's axle joint or spindle bearing. Guess that is the last thing to tear into.

It makes this noise with the engine off and rolling downhill. It makes this noise without the front driveline installed. It makes this noise with hubs engaged and free. It makes this noise....

Also getting a fair bit of wobble at about 45mph that wasn't there before the noise.

I will keep looking for something broken.