Axle overhaul, Part 5

1. Pack grease into the upper and lower knuckle bearings and press them into the races so that they are level. The grease will hold the bottom one in place.

   

2. Turn the outer knuckle so that it's rotated forty five degrees counter-clockwise and place it first over the lower bearing, then over the upper bearing. Rotate to normal position with the full plug up and facing the front of the vehicle. The knuckles have "L" and "R" castings on their side.

   

3. Place shims over the studs at top and bottom of the outer knuckle. I re-used the original shims, and the spring scale confirmed that they were appropriate.

   There seem to be three widths of shim, "fat", "medium" and "skinny". The shims that were on my knuckles were of the fat and medium type. The shims that came in the rebuild kit were of the medium and skinny size (There were two sets, actually: one set sized to fit my knuckles and a larger set.) I measured all the shims with some inch calipers, and got the numbers below. My metric numbers are probably supposed to be .100mm, .050mm and .025mm.

   original	"fat"	.040" (.104mm)
   original	"medium"	.021" (.053mm)
   rebuild	"medium"	.021" (.053mm)
   rebuild	"skinny"	.009" (.023mm)

   

4. Dorked bearing.

   

5. Smoothed gouge.

   

6. Removed the steering arm from the tie rod end.

   

7. Pack the hubs

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

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Morgan Fletcher <morgan@off-road.com> Last modified: Fri Oct 8 02:12:24 PDT 1999

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