Replacing a front axle-shaft. I'm replacing these things so often, that i don't feel i have an excuse not to take some pictures of the repairs anymor. There are 13 pics, and i don't think that's a coincidense
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The ujoint deceased on a long slope of loose sand, which a i had climbed relatively easy a few times before. Not this time as you can see in this MOVIE (of 2.7 MB (!)). On the pic on the left you can see some repair is necessary. Probably one of the locking springs of one of the u-joint caps broke, or worked itself loose, after which the cap itself found it necessary to venture into the... well, whatever. Then the cross must have jammed between the axle-shaft and ball-joint locknut after which something had to give. |
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Before loosening the lug nuts i suggest to use a wire brush on the studs. It'll reduce the risk of galling or seizing greatly, and makes turning the nuts a lot easier |  |
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Take the wheel off, splitpin out, move the brake caliper out of the way, loosen the big hub nut, and loosen the 6 nasty bearing housing bolts. For that you need a 12-point 3/8" socket with 3/8" drive-square, one with a 1/2" square will not fit into the hole in the brake rotor.. Then you can pull off the hub and rotor assembly, though there is a chance you need to motivate it with a puller. Now the axle-shaft will have to be taken out. Until it touches the inner wheelbearingseal it's easy. Usually, when it touches you lever it out by putting 2 large screwdrivers, or small crowbars behind the u-joint-ears of the axle-shaft and against the axle-tube. Not this time, because the ears were so badly deformed that the shaft wouldn't fit through the bearing housing. A bit of work with a minitiature cutting disc (Dremel) solved that problem. |  |
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After removing and scraping off mud-, clay-, sand-, and gasket residues (Don't forget to also clean the axle-tube) everything can be reassembled. If you re-use the original 3-piece wheel bearing seal, put the narrower steel-ring onto the axle-shaft, incl. the rubber V-ring seal. Then you can slide the axle shaft back through the wheelbearing housing into the diff. Do this carefully, you don't want to damage the differential oilseals which are just outside the carrier bearings. Finally you can put the wider steel seal ring into the bearing housing. With a lot of patience, a light hammer and a driving punch it'll go in fine (if you don 't have the seal driver). If i use a 'modern' seal assembly, i put them in inside-out, and i remove the circular spring, so the grease will flow out between the lip and the axle shaft, instead of pushing the new seal assy. out, when greasing the bearing. |  |
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Then you lay a bead of silicone RTV around the outside of the ring of the bearing housing, after which you can re-assemble the bearing. Make sure both outer bearing rings and the spacer ring enter the housing, but if you don't, you'll find out soon enough, because then the hub/rotor won't slide all the way onto the knuckle. A final check (after tightening the 6 12-point bolts) can be made by looking through the vent-holes in the rotor, to see if the the bearing cover is true and parallel to the knuckle. |  |
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Finally you can tighten the axle-shaft nut, 100 Lb/Ft IIRC, and then turn far enough to gain access to the splitpin hole. Now you can feel if the wheel-bearing doesn't have too much play. Play can be remedied by using a thicker spacer between the outer bearing rings, start with + 10 thou. This is a somewhat crude solution, but replacing the wheel-bearings every 3 months or so gets pretty expensive. Of course the bearings themselves must not be rough or pitted, if you do this. Now you can fill the bearing with fresh grease. Just keep pumping until clean grease escapes between seal an axle-shaft. For some reason the Dodge shop manual says that it's absolutely vital to install the bearing cover such that the grease nipple is in the three o'clock position. If our axle shaft was/is still okay, and you just replaced the u-joints for regreaseable ones, you can now put the grease nipple in the u-joint, and grese that too. With grease nipple the ujoint will not fit through the knuckle. |  |
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Then you can mount the wheel again. For nostalgia's sake there's also a pic of what's left of the old axle-shaft. |  |
