Front axle joints.

[Boyd]

My left front axle joint is squeaking and causing the steering to bind. I am going to replace both axel joints.



Are there any out of the ordinary problems with this job? Any Dodge tools needed?



Thanks,

Chris

 

[CBari]

Boyd



I Just Had To Replace Both Of Mine On My O3 Dually. I Looked At Doing Them And I Asked The Mechanic At The Dealership About Them He Said It Is Pretty Strait Forward, But If The Hubs Have Never Been Off They Are Usually Seized On And Can Take Lots Of Work To Break Them Loose. He Told Me To Have The Shop Foreman To Quote The Job And Then Let Them Do It. They Quoted 3 Hours Total Labor And Parts To Replace Both Sides And Gave Me A Price And Guarantied It Unless There Were Other Parts That Were Damaged That We Couldn't See.



I Let Them Do The Work And Turned Out To Be A Wise Thing The Hub Were Seized On Bad!!!!! Took 3 Hrs On One Side And 5 Hrs On The Other Just To Break The Hubs Loose.



If I Had Done It My Self After 2 Hrs On One Side I'd Have Been Trying To Figure Out How To Use My Backhoe To Pull The Hubs Off.



All Said And Done It Cost Me $462 To Have The Dealer Do It. Only Negative In My Opinion Is I Still Don't Have A Greaseable Joint.



Good Luck With Them.

 

[rbattelle]

The nice thing about doing the hub job yourself is you can liberally apply some anti-seize compound that will prevent future problems removing them.



A removal method.



Ryan

 

[ACoffel]

Here is my answer to the problem.

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[Zombie069]

I would think the dealer is blowing smoke up your *****...
I had never tackled balljoints previously, and did the passenger side complete start to finish in 5 hours. . And I had to run around and find someone to press out/in the joints. .
My truck had 190k on it and they were no joy to remove, but it was about 15 minutes of "what will work here" and they were off...
If the mechanic at the dealer who is "trained and certified" can't remove a hub in less than 5 hours, I'm thinking he's under-educated.

This is how they keep work coming in...
You go tell your buddy, who has similar problems, that "they said" it took 5 hours to just remove the hub, you buddy says "oh *****" I'm not gonna do that, I'll just pay them and it will be easier... And the cycle continues.

Brad

 

[whamby]

I could have both hubs off in less than an hour that includes removing the tires and calipers. Try the link that rbattelle list above. It works and will save you lots of busted knuckles and a lot of cussing.

 

[JLovas]

Yea, the hubs are stubborn to come off the first time. I loosened the four hub bolts on the back side, backed them out about 1/2", put a large posi-lock puller on the hub, tightened it up and used an air hammer to pound on the 4 hub bolts (I left my socket on the bolt head to prevent bolt head damage). Then replace the oem u-joints with greasable's (I used Precision 464's) and put lots of never seize on the hub before your slide it back in, should come out a lot easier next time.