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Front suspension rebuild

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jcatnite

jcatnite

Jedi Knight
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Just started pulling the front hub off of Rusty this morning. Had the weirdest thing. The inner bearing came apart on me. The inner race stayed on the spindle, the outer race stayed in the hub and the cage and balls ended up somewhere in between. Guess that explains why that wheel was stiffer than the other. The races look great so I'm not sure why the bearing came apart. The cage was intact as well. Strange....anyway, any ideas on how to pull the inner race off the spindle? I'm going back out now to try a little heat and some vice grips.
JC
 
Was it installed backwards.
 
Hard to remember that far back but think I taped it with a small hammer all around quite a few times which broke it loose enough that a very large pair of channel locks worked.
 
Well, I didn't mess with it yet. Doesn't look too difficult to break free. I figured I hadn't been frustrated enough today so I decided to press on and tackle the dreaded fulcrum pin. Fun, fun, fun. I've been frustrated enough now...lol. I did get it apart though. Now I will take the suspension bits to work to blast clean in our blast cabinet. Thanks to all the advice and posting here about front suspension work the passenger side went remarkably well. The oddball stuff I used that others might not have in their tool box were, a 4.5" electric grinder, a pneumatic cutoff grinder, and some left handed drill bits. Other than that, everything was pretty straight forward. I followed the service manual (for the first time ever) step by step. Worked out pretty good. I'll let you know what I find out about the bearing.
JC
 
Hey JC,

I had the same thing happen to me recently. It was because I used a BIG socket to tap the bearing out. The BIG socket only contacted the inner bearing and thus broke the cage. I later discoverd a grove cut into either side of the inner hub that allows you to put a punch against the races. Just a leeetle bit at time at each side.

morris
 
One more question. I did a test fit of the new king pin into my original bushings. The fit wasn't tight but I couldn't feel any real movement either. I was wondering how I could tell for sure if I needed to rebush them or not. I was really hoping to avoid that as I haven't bought the reamers yet.
JC
 
They all do that. The inner race will stick on the spindle and the bearing will come apart. If you don't feel slop on the bushings use it, it will be fine. don't get too anal. It will be fine. Make sure you install the bearing in the right way. They should be marked thrust on the bearing faces. These face to the inside of the hub...you know towards each other. Basically you will see a fat side and a skinny side of the outer race. The fat side should face each other in the hub. The skinny side should face to the outside of the hub or away from each other.
 
Hi JC, glad to hear things are progressing. My new king pins weren't a tight fit either, but the nice folks at Winner's Circle thought the bushings were fine. I couldn't tell any play in them, but they did feel a little more snug than the old king pins. Good luck on the rest of it!
-Dave
 
Thanks Dave, I figured I be hearing from you on this one. I know you just went through the same thing. So far it hasn't been too terrible. No progress today, my wife made me make some new doghouses today.
JC
 
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