thenrie

Noticed a clicking in my front passenger side wheel a few weeks ago. Decided to check it out and found a bit of wobble in the wheel. Also noticed a bit of rust color in the driver side axle U-joint. Decided it's time for an upgrade to a free-spin kit. After reading a bunch on this forum and checking out the sales info, I decided to go with the EMS kits. Got them last week and was pleased with what I saw. They get installed on Tuesday. I'll report on it afterwards.

By the way, thought I'd comment that EMS has done some of the assembly at the factory, which makes it so no expensive or fancy tools are needed for the install. As a lowly shade-tree mechanic, this is well-within my capabilitles. I just don't have the time, so I'm paying to get it done. I expect about 4-hours or so and about $500 in labor, including installation of new U-joints.

EMS has installed the bearing races in the hubs, the bearings in the spindles, and the lug studs in the hubs (my kit is for DRW). The only difficult part of the job would be getting the OEM hubs off and changing the U-joints out. If you can do those things, you can do this upgrade yourself. I paid $1749.05 including shipping and two new U-joints. The Extreme Duty kit is on sale for $1495 right now.

I'm hoping my OEM hubs and at least one bearing are in good enough shape to sell on ebay to help defray the cost of installation. This will be the last of the work my front end needs for a long while. Already installed Dynatrac ball joints, new tie-rod ends, new sway bar ends, new shocks, new rotors, new calipers, new brake pads, and new diff lube.

I don't know all the prior history of my truck, but it appears these front sealed-unit bearings made it past the 230K mile mark.

thenrie

Got 'em installed. Took them longer than planned. The shop charged me for 6 hrs, but I know it took them longer. They had to fuss with them a bit to get the spindles in place and had to do a little cleanup where a PO had changed the driver side U-joint with a hammer. They seem to be functioning well and the truck, oddly enough, seems to steer easier.

I'm getting a ticking noise from the driver side, though. I will have to check it out to see what it is this weekend.

I'll post some pics soon and some fuel mileage info once I have run a thousand miles or so on them.

thenrie

I haven't run a tank through yet to get calculated mileage, but my "lie-o-meter" has jumped up 2.1mpg since my hubs were installed.

Took a look at my old hubs and found one of the bearings was cracked. The other appears fine. I'm glad I did this upgrade when I did. That cracked bearing was bound to leave me stranded at an inopportune time.

I'm going to advertise the leftover parts on ebay to try to defray the installation costs.

rockcrawler304

So far I have been lucky with my front end but when the time comes to replace parts I will more than likely be going the same route. It would be nice to not have that extra mass rotating all the time!

thenrie

Finally got through two tanks of fuel and did my hand calc. First 1/4 tank was burned before I changed the hubs and 1 3/4 after. Another factor was that I was unable to "top-off" all the way after the first filling, due to the stupid credit card limit on the pump and I didn't want to have to go through the whole process again for the extra $2-3 of fuel I would get (you'd think that if they are going to charge nearly $4 per gallon, they'd at least set the limit so you could fill up a tank!). Anyway, calcs came to 16.93mpg. That's up from 15.55 before the hubs in the same driving conditions.

The 15.55 was hand calc'd over 4500 miles. The 16.93 was over 837 miles (I fill up at 3/4 tank to avoid the problems mentioned above). When I tried to hand calc for just the last tank, which was 100% with the new EMS free-spin hubs, and after adjusting for 1 gal that is normally what I get in after the first click-off at the pump (remember that when I filled up last time I didn't get to top-off after the first click-off - it clicked off at about $99.50), I got 17.38mpg over 418 miles measured.

So, I think I can safely say I am now getting a solid 17mpg in city/rural driving. The EMS hubs have increased my fuel mileage 1.5mpg. Interestingly, my eco meter is still climbing. It's now at 22.9. I'll continue to monitor and post results.

One caveat to the above results is that my front right bearings were shot. My increase in mileage may be as much from replacement of the bearings than from the EMS free-spins. I have no way of knowing whether my mileage would have increased as above if I had simply gone with OEM direct replacement unit Bearings instead.

thenrie

Had my carrier bearing go out last week. At first thought it was something with my new EMS hubs. Made a hellacious racket and banging around. Actually felt like something in my front-end had let go. Decided to upgrade to a one-piece drive shaft. While I was checking things out, I noticed one of my Warn hubs was loose. I had them look at it while we were at the shop. They took it apart and reinstalled it. After I got my new drive shaft installed, on my way home I noticed a grinding or vibration (not sure which) that occurs only as I slow down, under 25mph until I stop. I got out and found the other Warn hub was loose.

Now I'm not sure whether it's my new driveshaft or the hubs making the racket. One thing is sure, the shop didn't install the hubs correctly. I'm taking it back in tomorrow. I'm going to ask them to disassemble the hubs, check for damage, and re-install them precisely, step-by-step according to the instructions, not by a mechanic's memory "who did it once a while back." We'll see what comes of it.

I hate paying to have work I can do myself done by somebody else. Seems I'm never happy with it. Just sometimes the time is worth more than I can spare. I just don't have time to do it myself.

I need to find out what's making the vibration before I ruin something.

thenrie

Update on my EMS hubs. I continued to have problems with my hubs. They were reinstalled three times by the shop and kept coming loose and I had trouble getting them to lock-in to 4WD. Last Monday I called EMS to see what they suggest. I talked to Eric, the owner/engineer/designer of the EMS free-spin hub kit. He told me what he thought the problem was and he was exactly right. It was a 5-minute fix. Now all is well. Thought I'd pass on the info as an FYI.

First, the Warn hub getting loose:

The Warn manual locking hub has three splines on the inside that must key into three corresponding grooves in the locking body. The splines are about 1/2" wide and 1/8" tall and there are three, located at 120* apart. Now these splines and grooves are not obvious and Warn doesn't explain it well or provide photographs in their instructions. Not only that, but the hub fits into the wheel hub so snugly that you cannot tell whether it is lined up correctly. If not, the first or second time you engage 4WD you will find your hub loose. Just remove the outer allen-head screws and re-index the hub to match up the splines with the grooves. I made sure mine lined up by getting it lined up by eyeball, then inserting two screws, on opposite sides, and making sure they were perfectly square to the hub before pressing the hub into the wheel hub. Voila!

Second, the issue regarding it failing to lock-in to 4WD:

While I had the hub apart, I noticed there were two retaining clips on the axle. One was a circular spring clip and one was a C-clip. Turned out my mechanic installed the spring clip that came with the Warn hub kit and then re-installed the C-clip, that was originally on the axle, next to it. The C-clip was interfering with the action of the locking ring. I removed the C-clip and left only the circular spring clip provided with the kit and all is well.

I really like my EMS hubs. If there is any fault with them, I would have to say the instructions provided with the Warn manual-locking hubs is pretty light-weight. However it's not rocket science and the technical help from EMS, particularly Eric, was great!