Big, Greasy Mess. Just no other way to describe it. And what adds to the unpleasantness of this job was that it was not even on my rig, it was on my wife’s. But it could have been worse, it could have been raining!
Pretty much everyone is going to have to do this on their wagon. Time and road grunge take their toll on the wiper seals and before you know it you’re dripping grime and gunk all over your driveway and the inside of the tire. For the most part it doesn’t seem to get on your brakes even if you have pulled the dust shields like I have (but you will see dust shields in these pics because it is my wife’s 62). And doing this in your driveway will show you just what is involved if you ever have to change a birf on the trail like I have.
The best advice I can give is to first get a lot of rags together, a pile of newspaper, gloves of some sort (I use the blue nitrile) and a large plastic bag to hold all the garbage.
Once you have the rig up on jackstands, start tearing it all down. I usually have ziplock bags handy to keep parts organized and to keep the grit from my driveway out of places it shouldn’t be.
You don’t need to drain the 90 weight in the diff as it usually is no higher than the bottom of the knuckle. But have some newspaper handy to catch the drips if you do get 90 weight out of the housing when you pull the axles out. And don’t be surprised if you have to yank pretty hard to get the axle out.
For the most part I stick with the FSM but I don’t bother to remove the tie rod ends. When you remove the top trunion bearing cap, I just pivot it out of the way and leave it attached to the tie rod. Once it is out of the way the knuckle is easily removed from the axle housing.
Be sure to take a good look at the trunion bearings (some folks call these kingpin bearings). Be sure to check for sloppiness in the bearings as a loose wheel is not always the wheel bearings. This was the case with my wifes rig, the top bearings were toast when I took things apart. The bottom bearing takes most of the load but the top bearings are suseptible to water intrusion over time as they are not sealed and not a lot of grease gets thrown up there way. The bottom bearing on the otherhand is the beneficiary of gravity and are usually soaked in grease and oil no matter what happens in the knuckle.
Other than that trust your FSM. It has all the specs on the bolts and tells you what goes back on in what order because you didn’t pay attention when you took it apart did you?
Once the axle’s get slid back in past the new internal seals that keep the 90 wt where it belongs, it’s time to pack the knuckle with grease. You did pack the birfield before you put it in didn’t you? This is a place where enough isn’t… So what is enough? According to the FSM you should pack the entire knuckle with grease. This pic is what a pound of grease looks like after you stuff it into the knuckle. And believe it or not the manual even says you should pull that square plug on top of the knuckle after it’s all assembled and top off the knuckle with grease.
If you were thinking ahead now is the time to change out those worn wheel bearings and put some new rotors and pads on the brakes. Being that you have to press out the studs to change the rotors and since they are already off the rig you can see the sense of doing this now. Having to take it all apart again later just for the brakes will make you really mad at yourself for not doing it now….
And be sure to take a good look at those nice shiny calipers and smooth rotors because they won’t stay that way for long.
