February 12, 2015
Noticed this oil leak, inside of the passenger-side front tire yesterday, I'm assuming the old seals (original I think) are finally giving up. Little oil spray inside the driver's side tire too.
Ordering Koyo wheel bearing , etc. from Kurt.
Can I do this (I know it's a messy job)? If I keep track of shim orientation do I need any special tools (aside from that big socket - size?). Right now it seems like the OME springs have settled a bit and it's driving better than it ever has - oil hasn't seemed to impact the brakes (yet).
knuckle kit from Kurt - FA7590KWB
Got going with tearing things down and getting grease everywhere. One thing I noticed on the passenger-side (the side with the bad leak) is a definite worn spot is the bearing action when the wheels hit the straight ahead area – things are smoother on the driver’s side. Makes me happy cause it looks like the knuckle job/new bearings may improve handling on the road.
Lots of stuff to clean... everything seems in pretty good shape so far.
Hard to photograph these and show the wear. Two on the right are the really leaky side, with the big flat spot in the action. Maybe not bad considering how old they are?
Went with the stock seal (Kurt's kit). Custom seal driving tool, machining by Kiwidog - a perfect fit. Jim also suggested "pulling" the trunnion races in the housing instead of banging them in. We devised a puller - piece of 1/2-13 all thread, 2 discs from the seal tool with 2 big hold down nuts and carefully wrenched the races in. Few taps with the hammer to make sure they seated and they seemed good. Also made 2 custom brass drifts.
When I removed the main knuckle housing i removed the top (knuckle arm) bearing assembly first and then just tilted the housing off. The bottom bearing caps were then pulled on the work bench. To go back together I did the same, bottom bearings in first, tilted the housing back on over the top bearing and then install the top arm. Using finger pressure on the 17mm nuts with the top plate seem to help align the bearing arm cap. Put all nuts in place with just washers (no cone bushings) first, in case I needed to pull everything back apart. After an initial check on the preload, added the cone bushings and started to torque everything down. With all original shims back in original orientation, everything torqued to 43 ft-lb and wipers not back on preload/movement seems good. Even my high tech fish scale seems to measure right in the spec middle.
