Built Tough For Dirt Roads!
Well Hello There Fellow Technicians And Hivers!
Let's get on with it shall we?
Last week I wrote up a post where we had to fix an oil leak on a front differential of a Ford Ranger pickup truck. Now at first it didn't seem like much of a job, just a simple oil seal replacement and were done for!
This was not the case because there are so many other problems that arose while we were tearing down the vehicle, I'm surprised that the differential is still in a working condition, you know taking a look at the vehicle! (Btw I want to share that as well, I took a short video clip and the vehicle is in a shocking state!
Well today I'll be picking up where we left it, but the problem is we are getting the parts in somewhat of a rationing type of vibe. So I'll be doing what I can so long and luckily for me they decided to send the bearings for us first! Laughs so I can do the pressing and all that!
Getting It Prepped!
Oh on a different note, something that I really need to get in this workshop is a bench! I need my own damned bench I can't take this anymore 😅😂 but I ain't going to get a bench anytime soon! Bossman wants to re-arrange the shop so perhaps just perhaps after that I can put in a word and see what comes out!
I'm more than glad that I gave these wheel-hubs and knuckles a pressured water wash before we tied the knot on last week! Now I can just jump in and get it done!
They Were Biters!
Laughs what this means is that everything was stuck real badly! Meaning that we struggled to remove the parts, parts that would normally just fall out after a beating or two but hey at-least they made me work!
The first thing we need to do is to get the whole wheel-hub/knuckle assembly into a vice grip and then clamp that puppy down hard!
From There On-wards It Was A Beating!
Now we need to get the biggest hammer that the shop has! Legitly the biggest!
To put this into perspective hey, I once had to remove the hubs from the knuckles of a knuckle that sat in the rain for about three years, it was more rust than anything else. Well even that rusted up junk came out easier than this one here.
All I can think of that can cause it is sand biting down in between the surfaces but then again even oil gets pressed out so how can a grain of sand get in there?
I hammered and hammered until it fell down! Took a while though!
We Kind Of Did Something!
So, we didn't exactly cause any trouble for ourselves but something very odd just happened today, see when hammering the hub out the bearing is suppose to stay in its place and it is held in place with a big cir-clip. Now the problem is that the cir-clip just jumped out which means these really bit down hard.
It wasn't something that was just in my head it was something that is!
The most important thing is that we got it out at the end of the day right!
Okay Well We Got The One Half Removed!\
Laughs well we kind of need to remove the other half as-well but for this we might need the press, that part isn't going to just fall out there hey!
This is also where the job gets a little messy with all the grease being exposed now! Also with the cir-clip already removed things are going a lot faster than I first intended for it!
One thing I have to add is that these bearings were actually still in a good condition but we went on with the replacement because this is more a preventive situation rather than a maintenance one.
Bottom line is we don't want it back in the shop.
Always A Blurry Photo In The Bunch With Me!
Okay let's start with the easiest first!
Remember the hub that fell out with the one half of the bearing still pressed into it, well we need to remove that bearing from the shaft and the the other half of the bearing from the knuckle.
The problem with removing these bearings now is that you can't reuse them, the caging that keeps the rollers in place gets bent when pressing it and therefor they are officially worn out! Laughs or just buggered up ey!
The knuckle and the wheel-hub has two very different ways of removing the bearings from it, the wheel-hub wants you to use the bearing clamp and well the knuckle wants to be pressed out.
Funny thing is that the knuckle pressed a lot easier than the wheel-hub section which I don't really understand but that's okay we can't understand everything in life right!
As long as I was able to remove the bearings I am happy!
This Is The Main Reason Why!
Notice all of the ground and grass sticking to the ABS pickup sensor magnet? That isn't suppose to look like that at all because there is a seal that seals the bearing off and that seal isn't in a functioning order anymore so we decided to do the bearings along with mostly everything else!
Laughs, so one oil seal turned into four of them! Actually five because we're going to add another seal where there isn't suppose to be one. I'll show you later on in the post!
Now There's A Thing Of Beauty!
Ahhhh and to think I waited so long for these bearings, keep in mind that I started with these at like three this afternoon. And I've still not gotten all of the parts, I need the CV's and then I need the seals that seals on the cv head that pushed into the wheel-hub but who knows when we'll get those!
These aren't genuine bearings but if I had any wits left in me I'd say that these look a great deal more of quality! They have metal seals in! Now that is something! Something of beauty!
Laughs, never mind how skew the little tower is on top of it. But don't worry I've done this before and once I start pressing it'll pop right in place. It's just the weight of the knuckle making it hang a little bit to the right.
We want to press this bearing into place now, but there's always a catch ey. I'll show you!
Notice how the bearing is flush against the housing of it. Now although that might look correct it really isn't and it's easily forgotten by some 🤣
It actually needs to go down a little further so that the cir-clip we whacked out of place earlier can actually go into place... Yeah.
All Tucked In There!
Imagine forgetting that cir-clip and when the car is driven nice and hot things will start to shift out of place. How scary must it not feel to lose a tyre at the speed of 120km/per hour! That must be terrifying but imagine that client coming back to the workshop telling the boss what a mistake I made.
Oh dear!
The Last Few Steps Is Always Better.
Now all that is left to do before we can fit them to the vehicle is to press the hub and the knuckle back together, then the only thing that is missing would be the cv seals but that I can add after I added the knuckle assembly. So at the very least I got that going for me because I added them to the vehicle
The Last Prepping I Could Do For The Day.
After I re-fitted the knuckle assemblies back into place I went ahead and prepped the differential for where we want to add the extra seal into. It's not going to be bullet proof but it might last longer than what the original has, just maybe.
At the end of the day this is a problem that we would not be able to sort out because this vehicle sees way too much of the off-road life and it's possible for us to keep this vehicle in a great condition but the thing is that costs money. Money that we don't want to supply from our side!
Dated 28/08/2023
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