March 12th Update
Posted by Keegan Chaput On 2008/3/12 23:07:59
Update March 12, 2008.
Well I'm elbow deep in the front wheel assemblies. I started with the driver's side by pulling the wheel and brake drum/hub off. The grease was dark brown but there didn't appear to be any water in it which I took as a good sign. I was pretty surprised by the vast amount of gunk that had formed around every grease boot and fitting. It took considerable time to chisel it away carefully so as not to damage any rubber bits that could be reused. Once cleaned, I checked for any play in the hub and support arms and found none.
The brake drum was grooved up pretty good so it went out for turning at my local tire shop. When it came back it was as good as new, so I cleaned out the hub and checked the bearing races for the inner and outer bearings. The races checked out ok, but the bearings themselves were shot. My guess is flat spotted from sitting in the same place for a couple of decades. I was also in need of a new grease seal that installs in the hub on top of the inner bearing. I found the bearings and grease seal at my local NAPA store for a reasonable price. Inner Bearing (Timken 15123) $10.49, Outer Bearing (Timken 09067) $11.49 and the grease seal (NOS 17285) for $11.54. I purchased enough to do the passenger side as well.
Next to come off was the shock absorber. It gave a little bit of a fight but finally relented on the top mount and the lower mounting plate was removed with the shock attached for removal on the bench. I ended up snapping the stud on the lower mount in my efforts to remove the hardware. The rubber isolators had rotted away and the shock itself had outlasted its life expectancy. I found replacements (Monroe 5751) at my local O'Reilly Store for 22.99 apiece.
Because of all the crud I wanted to remove the knuckle support to clean out the bushings and rubber boots. The support came out pretty easily after removing the lower and upper support pins and I was able to clean it up to my satisfaction.
With the jack supporting the lower control arm I decided that I would remove the coil spring and the lower control arm to clean them up and hit them with some paint. I lowered the control arm ever so slowly and allowed the spring to come to full extension. I was standing well out of the way of the spring, just in case it decided to come out on its own with authority. With the spring out of the way, the control arm was removed after more chiseling of crud on the fasteners.
The control arm was pretty dirty, but otherwise in good shape. The movement on the pivot arm was smooth, so I just cleaned them up and squeezed some new grease in the fittings. After cleaning, a coat of oil based flat black rust-oleum was applied to the control arm and the freshly cleaned coil spring.
After the paint dried (ok, it wasn't completely dry) I started reassembly. Everything went back in smoothly, but I found that I was missing a rubber o-ring that acts as a grease boot on the lower mounting pin for the knuckle support. I went ahead and put it back together anyway because it won't be on the road for a while and I need it to be able to roll around the shop. It was also missing the rubber coil spring dampeners that had rotted beyond repair. I don't think I'll spend much time searching for replacements.
Now the passenger side: Everything started the same but when I got the brake drum/hub off (which also got turned at the tire shop) I noticed that the steering knuckle had some free play that seemed to be coming from the lower bushing area.
After driving out the pins holding the knuckle to its support I could see the lower bushing was galled. The upper needle bearing still looks good though so I think I can get away with keeping that one in.
Today, after doing a little searching, I ordered a pin rebuild kit from Kanter for about $100 ouch! It has new pins, bushings and bearings; enough to rebuild both knuckles. I guess that I'll have some spare parts on hand for any future repairs unless anyone out there needs to rebuild one of their own.
I'll be stalled until the parts arrive sometime next week. In the meantime I'll try to resist the urge to begin on a different part of the car. I'm also not going to press out the current bushing until the parts arrive so I can compare them, just to make sure.
Attach file:
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Well I'm elbow deep in the front wheel assemblies. I started with the driver's side by pulling the wheel and brake drum/hub off. The grease was dark brown but there didn't appear to be any water in it which I took as a good sign. I was pretty surprised by the vast amount of gunk that had formed around every grease boot and fitting. It took considerable time to chisel it away carefully so as not to damage any rubber bits that could be reused. Once cleaned, I checked for any play in the hub and support arms and found none.
The brake drum was grooved up pretty good so it went out for turning at my local tire shop. When it came back it was as good as new, so I cleaned out the hub and checked the bearing races for the inner and outer bearings. The races checked out ok, but the bearings themselves were shot. My guess is flat spotted from sitting in the same place for a couple of decades. I was also in need of a new grease seal that installs in the hub on top of the inner bearing. I found the bearings and grease seal at my local NAPA store for a reasonable price. Inner Bearing (Timken 15123) $10.49, Outer Bearing (Timken 09067) $11.49 and the grease seal (NOS 17285) for $11.54. I purchased enough to do the passenger side as well.
Next to come off was the shock absorber. It gave a little bit of a fight but finally relented on the top mount and the lower mounting plate was removed with the shock attached for removal on the bench. I ended up snapping the stud on the lower mount in my efforts to remove the hardware. The rubber isolators had rotted away and the shock itself had outlasted its life expectancy. I found replacements (Monroe 5751) at my local O'Reilly Store for 22.99 apiece.
Because of all the crud I wanted to remove the knuckle support to clean out the bushings and rubber boots. The support came out pretty easily after removing the lower and upper support pins and I was able to clean it up to my satisfaction.
With the jack supporting the lower control arm I decided that I would remove the coil spring and the lower control arm to clean them up and hit them with some paint. I lowered the control arm ever so slowly and allowed the spring to come to full extension. I was standing well out of the way of the spring, just in case it decided to come out on its own with authority. With the spring out of the way, the control arm was removed after more chiseling of crud on the fasteners.
The control arm was pretty dirty, but otherwise in good shape. The movement on the pivot arm was smooth, so I just cleaned them up and squeezed some new grease in the fittings. After cleaning, a coat of oil based flat black rust-oleum was applied to the control arm and the freshly cleaned coil spring.
After the paint dried (ok, it wasn't completely dry) I started reassembly. Everything went back in smoothly, but I found that I was missing a rubber o-ring that acts as a grease boot on the lower mounting pin for the knuckle support. I went ahead and put it back together anyway because it won't be on the road for a while and I need it to be able to roll around the shop. It was also missing the rubber coil spring dampeners that had rotted beyond repair. I don't think I'll spend much time searching for replacements.
Now the passenger side: Everything started the same but when I got the brake drum/hub off (which also got turned at the tire shop) I noticed that the steering knuckle had some free play that seemed to be coming from the lower bushing area.
After driving out the pins holding the knuckle to its support I could see the lower bushing was galled. The upper needle bearing still looks good though so I think I can get away with keeping that one in.
Today, after doing a little searching, I ordered a pin rebuild kit from Kanter for about $100 ouch! It has new pins, bushings and bearings; enough to rebuild both knuckles. I guess that I'll have some spare parts on hand for any future repairs unless anyone out there needs to rebuild one of their own.
I'll be stalled until the parts arrive sometime next week. In the meantime I'll try to resist the urge to begin on a different part of the car. I'm also not going to press out the current bushing until the parts arrive so I can compare them, just to make sure.
Attach file:
(30.25 KB)
(11.65 KB)
(22.98 KB)
(21.69 KB)
(21.02 KB)
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