Front Wheel Bearing problems

dusten · Feb 27, 2008

Alright, bear with me folks. This is my fathers ranger, so i posting this with info from him.
Truck is a 1993 Ranger, supercab short box
4L, automatic.
8.8 Rear Dana 35 front
4" lift, 2" body.
Runs on 33x12.5 BFG AT's and 15x10 wheels. About 6K miles ago(1 year) we installed a lock right in the front end. At that time we noticed some play in the wheel bearings(as if the nuts inside the hubs came loose)
Now my father works at a Chevy Dealer and is an ASE master tech, but he wont change his own oil. Anyways, the truck was in for a service and the lube boy(who is a good friend of ours) at the shop he works commented that he had some play in the front end again. What do you guys think is causing it? Are the front bearings just not able to support the wide tires and wheels? Is it something else?
This truck never gets wheeled. Its driven by a 55 year old man, to and from work and that is it.

97BlackBetty · Feb 27, 2008

The tires arent to wide, however what is the backspacing on the wheel? With these D35's if you put anymore backspacing on then stock the bearings start to go pretty quick. Other than that, when putting on the locknuts, if you dont torque down the outer nut tight enough it tends to loosen. Ford suggests, i believe, 150 foot pounds, however most will tell you that is no where near enough and most of us torque to around 250 foot pounds. The inner bearing is set to 16 INCH pounds. I generally just tighten the inner down tight and then back off a 1/4 turn. Others i have heard say they will simply hand tighten the inner locknut with the socket.

Evan · Feb 27, 2008

This is a very common problem with the D35, and there are a number of solutions. The first solution is to crank the hell out of that outer locknut applying 250+ ft. lbs. of force. This works fairly well, but makes the locknuts hard to get off, and given enough time and load they'll come loose anyway.

The reason they back off is because the tooth on that locknut washer is not deep enough, and as a result it can spin out of the notch in the spindle. Fixes to this include welding some extra metal to the tooth, welding two washers together, or jamming a piece of metal between the bottom of the spindle notch and the tooth on the washer.

dusten · Feb 27, 2008

i passed that info along, he has the truck with him at work and is doing a brake job, so he said he's torque them down good and tight.

4x4junkie · Feb 27, 2008

Yeah, pretty common, but easy to remedy.

My method:

Tighten the inner nut to 35 ft-lbs while spinning the rotor back & forth, back it off half-turn, then retighten to 15 INCH-lbs.
Tighten the outer nut to 225-250ft-lbs.

I've never once had it come loose doing it this way. Granted, I also run 15x8 wheels, not 15x10. A narrower (or less offset) wheel does help considerably here as well.

merace19 · Feb 4, 2010

Hate to dig up a old post and hijack but I am doing a little research and need to be clear on one thing.
The inner nut and other nut are only separated by a couple of washers right? what keeps the inner nut from turning, As I tighten the outer one to 250lbs?

Sasquatch_Ryda · Feb 4, 2010

The washer that goes between the 2 nuts has a tab that locks it into the spindle, as well there is a locating pin on the inner nut that goes into a hole in the washer. That is what keeps the inner from moving when you torque the outer down.

Front Wheel Bearing problems

dusten

Active Member

97BlackBetty

Well-Known Member

Evan

Well-Known Member

dusten

Active Member

4x4junkie

Forum Staff Member

merace19

Well-Known Member

Sasquatch_Ryda

Well-Known Member

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