Axle Overhaul
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Intro
My knuckles were weeping a mixture of diff oil and grease, they were caked
in thick gumpta, I had a shimmy at 55mph and one of my Aisin hubs had
grenaded, so that my front diff was always locked. Time for a rebuild.
Update
It's June 19th, 2003, almost four years after I first wrote
this document as a newbie to cruisers and auto mechanics in general. I
got an email from someone doing their first knuckle overhaul on a
cruiser, asking some questions. Here's my reply,
with advice. I still don't know what I'm doing, but I know a
little more now than I did before. :-)
Cost
I got the knuckle rebuild kit and a hub socket from Warden's Auto Repair in
Placerville for $150. The kit has everything but the inner & outer wheel
bearings and races and the spring clips on the end of the inner axles. It
later turned out I needed these. I bought the outer bearings, races and
spring clips from Freeman Toyota in Sonoma, CA for ~$75 with my TLCA
discount. A day later I "discovered" the inner wheel bearings,
removed them and found they needed replacing. The prices for new inner
bearings/races I got from Specter and Freeman were $39.80 and $42.46 for
each side. Figuring I could do better (but figuring this out too late) I
called a local bearing place in San Francisco with the bearing numbers, and
got them much cheaper: $18.02 for each side, $36.04 total!
In hindsight I could have probably gotten a better deal by buying a
gasket set and replacing the bearings at a bearing shop after I pulled
them, instead of getting them through Toyota.
Part Numbers
| Bearings |
| |
Original Parts |
New Parts |
| Inner wheel bearing |
Bower JLM104948 Japan |
same |
| Inner wheel race |
Bower JLM104910 Japan |
same |
| Outer wheel bearing |
Koyo LM102949 Japan |
|
| Outer wheel race |
Koyo LM102910 Japan |
|
| Knuckle bearing |
Koyo 30303D Japan |
Koyo TR0305A |
| Knuckle race |
Koyo 30303D Japan |
Koyo TR0305A |
Tools
Some of the tools I used for this job are pictured below:
A partial listing:
- rubber mallet
- 3lb and 4lb hammers A short handle is useful.
- brass drifts These are vital.
- hub socket
- fish scale
- various metric sockets and closed-end wrenches
- good torque wrench
- bench vise
- bearing / tie-rod end puller
- big flat-head screwdriver or chisel
Other
You'll need a lot of rags. No, more than that. Get at least 4 pounds of
lithium molybdenum wheel bearing grease, a gallon of 90 weight oil for the
diff. I recommend a big plastic tub and some strong degreaser too. The two
first active ingredients of the stuff I used - STP Grease Eater - were
butoxylethanol and sodium metasilicate. Next thing on the shelf at the same
price had the same ingredients. Worked good.
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