Thank you all for your advice and discussion on this thread, it was very helpful to me as it’s my first time doing any work on my cruiser.
I got the kit from
@cruiseroutfit :
inner grease seal
inner bearing & race
outer bearing & race
claw washer
lock washer
flange gasket
Also got the snap ring kit
(And a spring gauge and a 54mm socket)
And more new Toyota parts:
cotter pins
drive shaft
hub flange
dust cover gasket
adjusting nut
lock nuts
cone washers
grease caps
I removed, cleaned, overhauled existing knuckle w/ spindle bearing and bushing, steering knuckle arm, dust cover, and all reused hardware.
I cleaned and treated lower arm and knuckle and steering knuckle arm with POR15 regimen, mostly for aesthetics.
Some thoughts:
- I disconnected ABS sensor wires in engine bay and unscrewed and disconnected all the way down. The ps sensor had already been torn by the dealer and I didn’t want to risk destroying them thryong to get them out of the knuckles.
- I got the Slee spindle greasing tool but didn’t use it, I just slobbered grease all over and through the spindle bearings with my fingers while it was all apart.
- I followed
@2001LC advice and greased all bare metal and all contacting parts.
- the bolt ends of my tie rod ends we’re crushed so badly (from an arm puller I suppose) that the factory cotter pins would not fit through the hole, I had to downsize. Same problem with lower arm connection but not as bad.
- I had to extra clean, recut, and grease threads of ps tre connection in order to get the nut to spin on without turning the ball, this took a long time and many tries. Because of this I had to make my best guess on the torque.
- I put lock nut and adjusting nut on with flat side in and big side out as noted by
@2001LC (he observed original ones from the factory this way).
- I used pink Mobil1 synthetic everywhere.
- freezing the races and heating the hub did not help my install. I may not have had a hot enough lamp for the hub. Instead I used the old race for the outer and a drift for the inner. A hardwood dowel would have been better because I had to be real careful to keep the brass bits from the drift out of the hub.
- I wish I had ordered an extra set of dust cover gaskets to put between the knuckle and dust cover as per
@2001LC suggestion. I will do this next time. Instead I cleaned it up real good and greased it. My knuckles were pretty ugly in here.
- With all new parts my snap ring gap ended up to be 2.2mm on left and 1.8mm on right. Tight fit with absolutely no tolerance on either. Not sure why they’re different.
- I used a wooden mallet to fit the new grease caps to the new greased drive shaft ends.
Finally, my process for preload was this (mostly borrowed from
@abuck99 ):
1. Tighten adjusting nut to 43 ft-lbs
2. Spin hub in drive direction a few times
3. Retorque to 43 ft-lbs
4. Repeat until wrench clicks immediately a couple times in a row
*I THINK STEP 4 IS IMPORTANT*
5. Loosen adjusting nut until finger tight
6. Tighten adjusting nut to 25 ft-lbs
7. Check perpendicular preload tension on spring gauge
8. Spin hub a few times in direction of forward travel and check tension again
9. Repeat until I get a few consistent readings in a row
10. It’s low, so add a couple more ft-lbs to adjusting nut
11. Recheck spring gauge tension
12. Repeat until spring reads 9.5 lbf then continue (repeat) but proceed with more caution. Add torque to nut in smaller increments and once torqued, spin hub a few times and retorque until the wrench gives an immediate click. *AGAIN, I THINK THAT PART IS IMPORTANT*
13. I didn’t think it was right to exceed the original 43 ft-lb seating torque on the adjusting nut so I stopped there on the driver side. The spring gauge was reading 12 lbf. Kurt recommends heading for the top of the preload range (9.5 - 15.0 lbf) with new bearings and parts, but this was as close as I felt comfortable going. On the passenger side I got to 13 lbf preload with only 37 ft-lbs on the nut. I stopped there, knowing it would tighten once the lock it was on.
14. Slide on lock washer but don’t bend it yet
15. Install lock but and torque to 47 ft-lb.
16. Spin hub a few times and retorque
17. Repeat until consistent tight torque
18. Spin hub a few more times
19. Recheck preload
20. Repeat (spin and check spring tension) until reading is consistent. This final reading gave me a 14lbf preload on both sides. I was very happy with this.
21. Bend lockwasher tabs
I did the driver side first then repeated it after doing the passenger side with better results (those posted above). I didn’t do steps 4 and 12 the first time. I think that caused my torque readings to be off (nut was not actually getting as tight as my wrench thought it was) so I ended up with higher adjusting nut torques relative to the consequent preload. Extra spins and more care seating the nut each time I retorque it seemed to get me better results.
The most difficult parts of this process for me were getting my tie rod ends out and back in because the ball joints and taper spun pretty freely but the threaded end was corroded and a tight fit with the nut.
I hope this post helps someone else in future, THANK YOU again to all who posted before me.
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