4x4 U-Joints and Axles : Wear Inspection and Replacement

[eightynine4x4]

So I’m good to go with my front axle shafts u joints. All 3 are perfectly snug and square and move freely. I’m done one front driveshaft u joint, and have two there remaining.
After that, my entire system is ready to reinstall. This includes the knuckles, which now have new ball joints. Also includes the steering arms/rods.

i just finished installing the inner bearings on the rotors and I’m a little concerned about something…
After installing the seals for those bearings, there is quite a bit of play in the bearings. Like with the rotor sitting flat on table, i can reach in and lift the bearings up 1/8” and let them drop. Is this normal?
I installed the races that came with the SKF bearings. I removed the ones from the rotors that i got. Everything is solid, installed great.
But something feels crazy about having bearings that can slide laterally a little bit along the spindle shaft. Or is it fine?

 

[Curious Hound]

That is normal. When you put the assembly on the spindle and go through the torque procedure, the nut will squeeze the inner bearing races together and take out all that play. Basically, the nut pushes the first inner race against the first rolling element against the first outer race against the shoulder in the rotor against the second outer race against the second rolling element against the second inner race against the shoulder in the spindle. One big happy rolling sandwich.

 

[eightynine4x4]

That is normal. When you put the assembly on the spindle and go through the torque procedure, the nut will squeeze the inner bearing races together and take out all that play. Basically, the nut pushes the first inner race against the first rolling element against the first outer race against the shoulder in the rotor against the second outer race against the second rolling element against the second inner race against the shoulder in the spindle. One big happy rolling sandwich.

Got another weird question!
I needed to add one spindle nut since I was missing one. So I decided to just replace all 10, 5 on each spindle.
The only hex nuts I could find in the size were a little bit wider than the OEM ones.

This may sound crazy, but I’m worried that there is some kind of clearance issue that I’m going to have when I assemble the wheels on.

If I hold up a rotor to the spindle and slide it on, it stops right when the rubber circle of rotor reaches the wider part of spindle. See attached photos. But this is rubber, and it’s a very close fit. Does this whole thing actually slide fully / more on when press installed?

If so.. I can see that the 5 nut circle pattern would barely fit inside the gap behind the rotor, in other words around the red edge of seal. It’s really close. So the slightly smaller nuts might be jsut small enough to remain in the open area of rotor. Maybe larger nuts on the spindle would end up rubbing the wheel seal. Obviously very bad news immediately, and I would be able to tell once I installed the wheel and spun it by hand.
But on the other hand, does the rotor only go so far “on” as the pic shows? If that’s the case, there is lots of clearance laterally as pictured and the nuts dont need to fit between anything circular like I’m thinking.

 

[Curious Hound]

Got another weird question!
I needed to add one spindle nut since I was missing one. So I decided to just replace all 10, 5 on each spindle.
The only hex nuts I could find in the size were a little bit wider than the OEM ones.

This may sound crazy, but I’m worried that there is some kind of clearance issue that I’m going to have when I assemble the wheels on.

If I hold up a rotor to the spindle and slide it on, it stops right when the rubber circle of rotor reaches the wider part of spindle. See attached photos. But this is rubber, and it’s a very close fit. Does this whole thing actually slide fully / more on when press installed?

If so.. I can see that the 5 nut circle pattern would barely fit inside the gap behind the rotor, in other words around the red edge of seal. It’s really close. So the slightly smaller nuts might be jsut small enough to remain in the open area of rotor. Maybe larger nuts on the spindle would end up rubbing the wheel seal. Obviously very bad news immediately, and I would be able to tell once I installed the wheel and spun it by hand.
But on the other hand, does the rotor only go so far “on” as the pic shows? If that’s the case, there is lots of clearance laterally as pictured and the nuts dont need to fit between anything circular like I’m thinking.

View attachment 118867

View attachment 118868

That rubber is the seal. Yes. It goes over the larger diameter of the spindle. You could put a light film of grease or motor oil there to help lubricate it. That snug fit is what keeps dirt and water from reaching the back side of your bearings.

The rotor should not go the whole way up to the back surface of the spindle. Remember up above where I talked about the happy rolling sandwich? Try it. You'll see.

 

[eightynine4x4]

That rubber is the seal. Yes. It goes over the larger diameter of the spindle. You could put a light film of grease or motor oil there to help lubricate it. That snug fit is what keeps dirt and water from reaching the back side of your bearings.

The rotor should not go the whole way up to the back surface of the spindle. Remember up above where I talked about the happy rolling sandwich? Try it. You'll see.

I’m just concerned about the spindle nuts that hold the spindle to the knuckle… I couldn’t include those in these pics because there are no studs to mount them too haha. But when there are 5 nuts sitting there, they might already be super super close to the red seal edge when the wheel is pressed in. So.. if those 5 nuts are slightly larger now with replacments, say a few MM wider, am I running the risk of the NUGs tearing into the seal? Or is there always enough space that the seal will never get that close to the hex nuts?

 

[Curious Hound]

Should be enough space. Try it and see.

 

[eightynine4x4]

Should be enough space. Try it and see.

Thanks!
Here’s something that I’m concerned about now that im installing the knuckles…
The TRW lower ball joints I got seem to have a boot where the old ones didn’t. Or at least the old ones’ were completely gone. But regardless, this boot is never going to fit up into the hole in bottom of knuckle. The hole is much smaller, intended to press fit with the metal shaft of ball joint.
So now that I have this boot, obviously that’s a whole lot of material there that’s inhibiting the knuckle from going all the way up. At least, by hand as I try to get the nuts in place for wrench install.
So is this boot supposed to just mash down into the ball joint? Seems like that’s the only option for this to work. Or does it just compress and expand out? Seems like that would rip the boot.
Or are these parts incompatible?
Or am I supposed to remove these before install into knuckle?

(Side note, YES the ball joints are installed straight. My knuckles have all sorts of weird slopes that make it look angled but they are perfectly flush on both sides)

 

[Curious Hound]

The boot keeps dirt and water out of the joint. The tapered part of the stud will prevent the stud from going through the knuckle far enough for the boot to get damaged. The big end of the boot should stretch slightly to seal to the ball joint.

 

[eightynine4x4]

The boot keeps dirt and water out of the joint. The tapered part of the stud will prevent the stud from going through the knuckle far enough for the boot to get damaged. The big end of the boot should stretch slightly to seal to the ball joint.

Ok got it. These aren’t rubber they are more firm than that and don’t have a wide section that could squish out, so I’m concerned but I guess we’ll see.
Here’s another obstacle I hadn’t thought of… the ball joint will spin when the nut is turned with any real force. To make things worse, in my TRW lower ball joint there is no castle nut/pin, so I think that as an alternative to security they decided to pinch the top threads of the nut to turn it into a lock nut. This means I have to use a lot of force the entire length of the stud, AND I can’t use a socket because I need an Allen wrench to sit in the stud top so that it doesn’t turn. I have to turn the nut with a 24 crescent.What a pain in the ass design this is! What’s wrong with a castle nut TRW??
Anyways, even after I get the nut all the way down, I will need to torque it to spec. So now I guess I have to go order some expensive torque crescent wrench because I have to leave the allen wrench in the top of the stud? Goodness gracious what an ordeal these particular ball joints are.
I’m also trying to navigate thread locker.. given how slow I’m turning the nut (each turn takes a lot of effort), if I put some thread locker down in there it will probably be dry by the time the nut is over it.

 

[Curious Hound]

That nut definitely stinks. You shouldn’t need thread locker on that. Don’t worry about torque. Get it as tight as you can, plus a little bit more and it will be fine.

The seal will do its thing. It should sort of snap onto the wide part of the ball joint. Not the widest shoulder, but the next widest part. You’ll be ok.

 

[eightynine4x4]

That nut definitely stinks. You shouldn’t need thread locker on that. Don’t worry about torque. Get it as tight as you can, plus a little bit more and it will be fine.

The seal will do its thing. It should sort of snap onto the wide part of the ball joint. Not the widest shoulder, but the next widest part. You’ll be ok.

Well, I got the whole knuckle “up” enough to put the top castle nut on and start cranking away to bring the whole knuckle fully up. I still have a ways to go until i reach the point where the pin can go into the side of the upper stud.…But at this point I’m needing to use my 4 foot breaker pipe, and I’m certain I’m pulling with more force than when tightening down lug nuts on a wheel. So 100+ ft lbs to turn the top castle nut with many rotations to go. Also, the top of the adjustable/positionable chamber nut is starting to shred from the castle nut turning into it. Additionally, i already can’t turn the knuckle by hand at all. It is extremely tight. It will only pivot if i use a large tool for leverage. This seems wrong. And i still haven’t fully tightened it yet. Every video i‘ve watched about installing the ball joints shows that the knuckle can rotate by hand when all is done. It’s firm, but you can use two arms to make is swivel back and forth. There is zero chance i can do that.
Maybe this is all caused by the weird extra boot of lower joint?

 

[Curious Hound]

Well, I got the whole knuckle “up” enough to put the top castle nut on and start cranking away to bring the whole knuckle fully up. I still have a ways to go until i reach the point where the pin can go into the side of the upper stud.…But at this point I’m needing to use my 4 foot breaker pipe, and I’m certain I’m pulling with more force than when tightening down lug nuts on a wheel. So 100+ ft lbs to turn the top castle nut with many rotations to go. Also, the top of the adjustable/positionable chamber nut is starting to shred from the castle nut turning into it. Additionally, i already can’t turn the knuckle by hand at all. It is extremely tight. It will only pivot if i use a large tool for leverage. This seems wrong. And i still haven’t fully tightened it yet. Every video i‘ve watched about installing the ball joints shows that the knuckle can rotate by hand when all is done. It’s firm, but you can use two arms to make is swivel back and forth. There is zero chance i can do that.
Maybe this is all caused by the weird extra boot of lower joint?

Something is definitely wrong. Stop tightening. Take pictures and post them. Then loosen it up. Any TTB I’ve worked on did not have a nut on the upper ball joint. Usually just a post that goes up through the camber bushing. Then a retaining ring in a groove. You may have some wrong parts.

 

[eightynine4x4]

I’m the idiot.
I had the camber nuts fully upside down. So instead of being mostly recessed into the cavity, they were over an inch tall.
Stupid !!! Sorry for wasting this forum’s time !!
I flipped them back and things definitely seem to install fully.
I wasn’t able to get them totally snug though. They sit so that the notches just barely overlap enough for the camber rotation to stay in place. Both sides are like this. So I’m a little worried about that. In the old ball joints, one side was more flush than the other, but neither were fully flat. So i guess it’s ok.
Here is a pic of the old ball joints. And below is a pic of both new ones installed.
Aside from this, I just need to crank down the lower ball joint nuts. Those DO SUCK. But i think the boot in question in lower ball joints is just fully mashed up and doing fine now.

 

[eightynine4x4]

ok

Something is definitely wrong. Stop tightening. Take pictures and post them. Then loosen it up. Any TTB I’ve worked on did not have a nut on the upper ball joint. Usually just a post that goes up through the camber bushing. Then a retaining ring in a groove. You may have some wrong parts.

Yet another question!
Do I need to use the thin flat spindle seats behind each spindle?
The drivers side has a lip around it. The passenger is flat but has remanants of a lip, so I guess it’s just mostly gone.
Seems weird to even install these, right? They’re super rusty and will only keep falling apart.

 

[Curious Hound]

Spindle seats???? Not sure what you’re talking about. But every part in the assembly has a purpose. Leaving something out may have consequences you’re not aware of.