Front Axle Question

[jelag]

Surprise, Surprise... I tried to pull the front rotors this evening on my 05 dually and found there were so many layers of rust on the ID of the surface that has to pull over the hub... . it would not pull off... .



I ended up pulling the hub and rotor, and lying them on the bench, than used a chisel to drive apart the layers of rust so that the two parts would come apart... Of all the stuff I worked on I've never seen this before... . I tried a wire brush, flapper wheel, all kinds of stuff and nothing worked other than a chisel and hammer... . and can't think how I'd do it on the truck.....



SO HERES MY QUESTION... . I need to pull the axles (05 Dually) to change the ball joints and I can't remember if I have to remove the differential cover and pull 2 clips to release the axles..... or I'm just not tugging hard enough... I remember having it open to change the fluid... and as I remember using a silicon material to make a gasket . . or was there a re-useable rubber gasket..... and if I have to pull the cover... what is the spec on the oil.....



Thanks for your input... .

 

[mwilson]

Jim,

They should pull right out with the assumption being made by me that the 3/4 and 1 ton front axle have the same internals.
The axles move in and out a slight bit each time that the wheels are turned so another reason that there should not be a clip holding the axle into the spider gears.

Probably just need to tug a little harder.

Mike.

 

[mwilson]

Up here in calcium country I have had to remove the front hub and rotor as a unit, then set the backside of the rotor on two blocks of wood and whack the hub with my 6' bar being careful to avoid the splines to get it separated.

Put a liberal dose of Never Seez where the two parts meet or it will happen again. I am pretty sure that between my two trucks there is at least one whole container of Never Seez applied to the front end components.

Stick your hand under there about anywhere and it come back out silver, BUT stuff will come apart easily.

Mike.

 

[jelag]

I had no problem sliding the hub off the axle splines, nor separating the hub from the knuckle... both had a liberal coat of never seize when it was last put back together 90K miles ago... its the layers of rust on the id of the rotor where the edge of the hub has to run across for the two parts to come apart... its like the layers of rust between the surfaces of the rotors... in the vents... lots of rust and lots of layers...

 

[mwilson]

Yes, makes one wonder about the quality of the rotor material.



Mike.

 

[S.Morris]

+ 1 on what Mike said. The steel used in aftermarket rotors seems to rust much worse than OEM. If you leave a vehicle set up here for a month in March the rotors will be ruined , next time it moves. .



The axles take a good tug, Use a prybar in knuckle on ujoint ear.



I use a flat driver piece in a HD air chisel (end is about 1" in dia) and vibrate around the flat of the rotor and most times it will eventually come loose.

Diff cover should be reusable rubber gasket

 

[jwduke]

Any ideas on keeping the wheels from welding themselves to the rotors??

 

[RDeFayette]

clean all the rust and scale off that you can.

dry fit for a quick check when re-assmbly time comes then after everything fits ok before final assembly apply anti-sieze.

 

[jelag]

UPDATE, Monday a. m. after the job is done...

Well, the truck is back together... . new ball joints, and tie rod ends... lubed the u-joints and hubs. . cleaned all the rust/scale out of the vents on the rotors... did a basic set of the toe... . scribed a line around each front tire and measured across at the front and rear and have the toe as close to zero as I can make it until the new tires are installed and its goes across the alignment rack... .

I was surprised how there is no way to get the grease fitting into the lower ball joint... it hits the yoke on the U-joint. . I saw a couple of photo where someone modified the ball joint... What I'm curious about is if anyone has tried to drill into the housing of the lower boss, and through the ball joint and installed a zerk in the housing... I'm going to take one of the old ball joints and put it in a vice and see what's up... I was surprised that below each ball joint that came out... was some grease in the boot, of course it was clean... . it was pushed out of the joint when the OE joints were installed... . but it was still there after 140K miles... . which shows that the grease boots were still working... .