Front axle rebuild

[KLEMM]

I just finished pulling apart the front axle passanger side on my 50 power wagon. There was oil dripping out at the bottom of the knuckle I assume from the steering knuckle flange oil seal, and / or inner oil seal. I have a few questions.
1. The bronze bushing. What are the tolerences for the axle shaft and bushing. I want to do this right the first time.
2. The oil seal and inner driveshaft bushing. What is the easiest way to remove. Does it need to be replaced. Is it a high wear item?
3. The rollers in the steering knuckle trunnion bearing have left depressions in the race. Is it common to replace with a new bearing and race or run it the way it is.
That is all for now.

[Charles Talbert]

I just finished pulling apart the front axle passanger side on my 50 power wagon. There was oil dripping out at the bottom of the knuckle I assume from the steering knuckle flange oil seal, and / or inner oil seal. I have a few questions.
1. The bronze bushing. What are the tolerences for the axle shaft and bushing. I want to do this right the first time.
2. The oil seal and inner driveshaft bushing. What is the easiest way to remove. Does it need to be replaced. Is it a high wear item?
3. The rollers in the steering knuckle trunnion bearing have left depressions in the race. Is it common to replace with a new bearing and race or run it the way it is.
That is all for now.

Based on the info provided, you need to perform a complete rebuild of the front axle. Remove the inner axle seal and bushing with a slide hammer puller. The inner axle seal is gone and is the reason oil is in the knuckle housing. The usual reason for seal failure is the bushings are worn out letting the shaft bounce around beating the seal to death or the seal mating surface on the shaft is rust pitted, grooved, or both. In this case replacing the seal only is fruitless, if a new seal doesn't have a good surface to seal against, it will not stop the leaking. If the shaft shows damage, you will need to take it to a machine shop for rebuilding or replace with a new rust free shaft. In a stock configuration, these are high wear items; installing front wheel lock out hubs so the front drive line can be disengaged when not needed will save much wear and tear and many $$$ in parts and rebuild cost over time. The bearings in the condition you describe absolutely need replacement, installing a tapered roller bearing on the top and bottom is advisable; parts needed are 4 each 23256 cones and 4 each 23100 cups. Set the bearing preload to 60 in. lbs. by choosing a correct shim pack before installing the felt seal in the knuckle housing. Fill each knuckle housing with 3# of premium quality NLGI #2 spec grease after installing a new felt seal.

Continuing to run with it in this condition is not only unsafe, but also will cause wear damage on the entire system to accelerate drastically.

[KLEMM]

I will call tomorow to order parts.

[Cheyenne Dave]

From your posting;

3. The rollers in the steering knuckle trunnion bearing have left depressions in the race. Is it common to replace with a new bearing and race or run it the way it is.





The wear you speak of is called "brinelling", and it's very likely I misspelled it. It is caused primarily by a life-time of dirt road driving, and/or poorly adjusted bearings. The two haves of the bearing assembly (cup & cone) get consistently hammered into each other in the same relative position.

This a serious condition which can lend itself to wandering, sloppy steering, and sudden wheel hop and violent shaking.

By all means, replace any bearing that displays this, or any other defect that can be seen or felt. Some other defects to watch for are:

-Discoloration or other evidence of over heating

-Pitting or spalling

-Chipping of the roller corners, or rollers that seem rounded
(not to be confused with roller bearings that are barrel shapped, but
the Power Wagon does not use this bearing type).

-grooves or rings in the wear pattern

-an uneven wear pattern

Some of these examples are less serious than others an you will need to decide what to let slide.

Before I went through all the bearings in GUS, he handled like crap! All the trunion bearings were toast, as you described. They looked like that wear pattern in the cones had been machined that way. What a huge difference in road manners and piece of mind with new bearings!

C.D.

[KLEMM]

Forgot to add, the wheel bearing adj nuts could be taken off by hand.

[Tranny Frank]

Pictures of axle

Would you happen to have any pictures of this brass bushing, and of the axle,

I have been working on this for a while and would like to put a article together,

Thanks Frank

[Tranny Frank]

short fiber grease or wheel bearing lube or #2 multipurpose grease?

Some older books give 2 different recommendations

[Tranny Frank]

trunnion bearing preload

heres a link that has the scans for bearing preload,

9-25 for the dana 44 axle and up to 40 lbs for the heavy duty axle,,
without wiper seal installed,,,
http://www.the4x4network.com/forum/v...hp?f=69&t=2981

[Tranny Frank]

part 1

So I will get started right away,

Hmmm

Grease Monkey turned writer, Ok,,

A while back I ran into a odd situation, with conflicting information from Toyota about a type of grease for the enclosed knuckle steering axle, So while none of the information that I got from Toyota added up, I decided to read up on what Domestic Manufactures used in years past, for this unique "Live" steering axle,

What Dodge stated in a old Motors manual was "Short Fiber grease" this at the time made really no sense to me, had no idea what that meant, I asked a grease specialist what that meant, and he did not know either, but a old Jeep book mention Sodium based grease, was used for initial fill at the factory, for their version of this Dana axle,

Now when began looking into Sodium based grease, mostly just to try to find some,I learned that it was also known as Soda Soap grease, So it was about a month or so into my research when I came found a patent From 1941 on the Internet, all about Short Fiber grease,

The first line in the patent was that Short fiber grease was related to Soda soap greases, Wow Sodium grease, Dodge uses the same thing as Jeep, just called it by a vague round about term,

Then in reading up on this type of grease, in the semi fluid form (Learned from Jeep) #0 form, I learned that it had "Adhesion" properties, so this made what International stated to use make sense a38 OZ of a Viscous Chassis lube,,
This word was the first Clue that I had in this crazy grease search, in a Viscous coupler is where I had seen this grease, So while all of these three manufactures used three different terms they all said the same thing,

If you where to go to a astute grease supplier and ask him for a grease that had "viscous" properties he would hand you a sodium based grease in a semi fluid form, being the definition of the word "Viscous" is syrup or glue like,
Describing a fluid with adhesion, While other manufactures like Ford only said use the "proper lube" and to fill the knuckle with 1/2 pint of it, now the only clues there where, if there is a "proper lube" there is also a "incongruous lube" and that a pint is typically a fluid measurement,

Now flash forward in Time from the 1960,s when these things where all that was used and call parts supplier that specializes in the parts for these things, and some how these "Fill plugs" have turned into "inspection holes" , I met one such owner of a Power Wagon that thought that this didnt make much sence,
What the heck am I going to inspect thru that little hole? He was pretty sure Ol Dodge wanted him to pump some sort of fluid in their,

He was right, Short Fiber Grease,, ,,,, To be continued

[Tranny Frank]

part 2

So while one may think that the advancements in lubrication technology go hand in hand with production vehicles this is not always the case, While conversing with classic car owners older designs sometimes will require a unique lube of the past, simply by design, so while it is such a niche market larger grease manufactures will not always produce these type of greases, they become obsolete, Now this is apparent in the Closed knuckle as well as a older type of U -joint used in Dodge passenger cars,

It is known as the Ball and Trunnion U joint, this older design owners have found very little success with newer lubricants, The Original lube is described as something between gear oil and grease, with tremendous clinging ability, This describes to a "T" what this type of grease is

Now on the average the mechanic using the grease does not know a whole lot about what it is or how it is made, only what he can see, so by simply smelling or feeling the grease mechanics can get some what of a idea of what they are working with,
So in this day in age when mechanics or techs as what they are called now a days with wear latex gloves to as to protect themselves from this horrendous material they have to work with, less and less is observed,
Aside from smell, that is all about a tech or mechanic can know about them,,

So this type of grease in modern times is generally mis diagnosed as axle seal failure in this closed knuckle application, simply because mechanics or especially Techs are not educated about grease, I know that I wasnt, Only began looking into this subject because of mis leading information from Toyota,

I learned a whole lot in very small time, it all had made sense because I had worked with all types of grease over the years but never stopped to learn about it, never wondered, its funny looking back, I had seen semi fluid in wheel hubs but never thought about it,
Just packed it with #2 grease like anything else, now what is the unique aspect of this axle is that the wheel bearings are also lubed by this #0 grease, and since it acts more like a oil longevity of thirty or more years can be obtained, Since the lube is designed to flow thru the spindle bushing, so its simply not a good idea to use two types of grease for the same assembly, as the grease experts state even greases of the same base can have incompatibility issues,

This is one of the main reasons this Short Fiber grease, Soda grease , Sodium grease is no longer used, Incompatible with any other base of grease,

So much easier just to use and have one type of grease , So while little niche older designs that are engineered for this type of grease, not enough demand, simple, becomes obsolete,



,

[Tranny Frank]

Brass upper bushing

Does any one have a photo of this Brass upper support?

Also I would like to up load the scans to this thread but I do not see a place to do it??

Oh, I am not allowed to, You may not post attachments.

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/2255278.pdf

Here is where I found the information pertaining to short fiber, soda based greases,

Patented in 1941

[Tranny Frank]

Moab Jeeper magazine

http://www.moabjeeper.com/articles/g...?articleID=557


Here is a good article about the grease,

http://www.ehow.co.uk/list_7256219_u...ng-grease.html

[Tranny Frank]

Good old Bob

http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums...45#Post1973145