Thanks to all the mudders, and of course CDan, for sharing their experience and advice!!! Prior to this, my only experience was recently when I changed plugs, wires, cap&rotor, another ih8mud success story. For a mechanical newbie like myself, this was a substantial accomplishment.
The job took two long, messy days last weekend with the help of one dedicated friend. It included new trunion and wheel bearings, and new rotors and 100 pads. The only item I had to revisit was the DS flange and gasket. I didn't realize the gasket was fused to the flange when I removed it and outer circlip would not sit during reassembly because of double flange. The gasket did not want to come off, took alot of soaking and scraping. Other than that, it was just a methodical and careful process. Other PITA's included installing inner wheel bearing races (took ALOT of pounding) and getting the inner circlip to compress when reassembling the birfields and axle shafts. I don't see how this could have been done without three hands (one to steady clip, one to compress clip, and one to force axle shaft down). Getting the rotors on and off hubs was hard, how does one stablize rotor by themselves? Pads needed to be sanded about 1/16" in order to fit.
Test drive was a success. The new brakes work SO much better. I think I made the mistake of putting expensive diff oil in, as I'm thinking now that I should drain and refill soon to get out any leftover grease. But perhaps I don't need to, as there did not appear to be alot of contamination??
Now I will move on to replacing rear rotors and pads, and valve cover gasket. Than hopefully on to some overdue mods.
Perk
The job took two long, messy days last weekend with the help of one dedicated friend. It included new trunion and wheel bearings, and new rotors and 100 pads. The only item I had to revisit was the DS flange and gasket. I didn't realize the gasket was fused to the flange when I removed it and outer circlip would not sit during reassembly because of double flange. The gasket did not want to come off, took alot of soaking and scraping. Other than that, it was just a methodical and careful process. Other PITA's included installing inner wheel bearing races (took ALOT of pounding) and getting the inner circlip to compress when reassembling the birfields and axle shafts. I don't see how this could have been done without three hands (one to steady clip, one to compress clip, and one to force axle shaft down). Getting the rotors on and off hubs was hard, how does one stablize rotor by themselves? Pads needed to be sanded about 1/16" in order to fit.
Test drive was a success. The new brakes work SO much better. I think I made the mistake of putting expensive diff oil in, as I'm thinking now that I should drain and refill soon to get out any leftover grease. But perhaps I don't need to, as there did not appear to be alot of contamination??
Now I will move on to replacing rear rotors and pads, and valve cover gasket. Than hopefully on to some overdue mods.
Perk