front hubs...oem or warn?

[jb welda]

i recently somehow decided it was wise to "upgrade" my front oem hubs of unknown age (probably came on truck from factory so 200k+ miles) with warn hubs.

then in the latest toyota trails mag i noticed a tech piece on warn hubs screwing up because they were aluminum bodied and a sliver of steel got lodged in the internals and that prevented them from engaging all the way and that led to them eventually failing...you guessed it...at the worst possible time.

so that was a bit disheartening seeing as i guess ive basically tossed a couple hundred bucks down the $hitter...but i wanted to ask, whats the common thought on replacing the oem hubs with aftermarket warn ones? good idea? pure stupidity?

on the plus side i like how the detent works when you engage them and they look cool. look cool that is until they break i guess!

so...oem or warn, whats the concensus?

one love
jah bill

 

[brokenparts]

OEM... I've heard lots of horror stories about warn in toyotas.

 

[Isotel]

X2 Aisin hubs are the ones you want

they can be a pain to rebuild, but once you know how they work your fine..

 

[BwardeAZ]

x3 Aisin 200,00 miles never one issue

 

[jb welda]

care to share some horror stories? what goes wrong with them or makes them inferior? i would just like to know some details.

i guess eventually then i will get some new oem hubs and take the warn hubs and put them in the spares box for trail repairs. seems like a shame though.

ps: any good sources for discounted aisin hubs new? cruiser dan or some other sponsor?

at least i know how to install them now.

one love
jah bill

 

[agent orange]

Whats wrong with your old ones? They shouldnt really wear out. From what i can tell other than inferior metals the big issue is they dont have cone washers, so they loosen up and then break. If the aisins get loose they can break too, but they are a lot less likely since the cone washers keep things tight.

 

[Mark W]

Warns are a step down in quality.

Toyotas never blow the body out like a shotgun due to overloading the way Warns can do. Seen it. Toyotas don't stick out as far to hit rocks like warns do when you get into the gnarly stuff. Seen it. Toyota have a steel body no AL. Enough said. Toyotas only need to be turned 1/4 to engage, not 320 degrees like a warn. PITA with gloves on. Toyota use cone washers to lock them in place and don't have to be regularly checked and tightened like warns. Toyotas don't uses those stupid little allen head bolts that strip out like warns do. Seen it and taken a sledge hammer to the hub to get it off/throw it away. The Toyota internal mechanism is much simpler and stouter than the warn.

And that little chunk of steel would never have caused us the problems in an Aisin hub the way it did in that Warn. ;(

Stick with OEM.


Mark...

 

[jb welda]

>Whats wrong with your old ones?

evidently the only thing wrong with them was the nut behind the wheel, and some cash burning a hole in his pocket. oh and the power of advertising.

>They shouldnt really wear out

really? even after 200k miles? then i guess its back in with the old and out with the new...but at this point i might feel more secure with new aisin ones just for the halibut. is that crazy thinking?

you know the one about the fool and his money.

one love
jah bill

 

[Mark W]

You locking hubs should not wear. Dollars to donuts your old ones are in virtually perfect condition, regardless of the mileage of the rig. The hub doesn't care how many times it has revolved going down the road, locked or unlocked.


Mark...

 

[agent orange]

You know bill if you have all that money burning a hole in your pocket i really need a front locker......

 

[jb welda]

>You know bill if you have all that money burning a hole in your pocket i really
>need a front locker......

i could use one too but dont give me any more ideas please.

thanks you guys, if you got more stories keep em coming, meanwhile i think i know what im doing this weekend...undoing the "improvement" i made a few months ago.

one love
jah bill

 

[5280Hawk]

I rebuilt my aisins and they looked like Crap on the outside. I got em open after battling the 24 year old cone washers and the inside looked amazingly intact. no noticible wear. I cleaned them up and repainted the outer ring and put them back together, and they look ,and work, like brand new!

 

[Tapage]

x3 Aisin 200,00 miles never one issue

X4 Aisin hubs rocks !

But I need to post here .. I'm very plased with a super winch hub, It was my spare but I need to change in a trail coz my aisin was stuck in lock position .. I change it for the super winch and continue using it in a several more trips with out problems ..

Just check some videos and trips .. and you be agree with me .. not bad, not bad.

 

[KLF]

Here is what happens to Warn hubs when they get loaded up:

I have witnessed this happening at least 3 times. An AISIN hub will never do this. And as long as there's a little bit of grease inside them, they will last longer than the rest of your truck.

 

[ellington12]

i have to chime in here too...

when i bought my 60 it came with superwinch hubs. i'd like to at some point replace them with OE aisins.

is the dealer the only place to get 'em? i looked around the internet and find lots of places dealing with warn and superwinch but aisin never seems to come up...

 

[Godwin]

Salvage yard. Early to mid-80's mini-trucks with the solid front axle used the same hub.

 

[jb welda]

heres an update: i was changing my oil and inspecting the rig after returning from death valley last week and a buddy of mine came over. i mentioned how it seemed i had wasted money buying new warn hubs to replace stock ones that were most likely fine and made to a much higher standard than the warn ones. he asked how come i thought i had wasted money because he thought (as i did) that warn was a trusted maker of premium parts, so i started going over what has been said here: they stick out too far, they are made of substandard material, they come loose due to not using cone washers etc. right about then i grabbed one of my hubs and it seemed loose. so i pulled the stock hub cover off and two of the five (or are there six? im not in front of the truck right now) bolts fell on the ground and all were loose. in addition when i checked closer, three of the allen head bolts were finger tight and the others were only a bit tighter.

huh.

so i went over to the other side and...same deal.

im lucky these stupid things didnt end up looking like the photo above!

so i got out the rachet and socket and tightened the outers down and with an allen wrench tightened the inners down on both hubs. then i immediately found my aisin hubs and made plans to swap them back in next weekend.

so...as predicted...these "improved" hubs were just a waste of money. once again, ya live and ya learn. glad i didnt learn that in pleasant canyon or somewhere less pleasant than my driveway!

one love
jah bill

 

[Mace]

That was not the hubs fault, it was the installers..

Honestly, if you are not locked on 35's you will probably never have an issue with the warn hubs..

I ran them for years. It took 38's and gearing to kill the one that I did kill.

I replaced them with a D60

 

[cruiser88]

i have to chime in here too...

when i bought my 60 it came with superwinch hubs. i'd like to at some point replace them with OE aisins.

is the dealer the only place to get 'em? i looked around the internet and find lots of places dealing with warn and superwinch but aisin never seems to come up...

you had better hurry i had them and they suck

 

[jb welda]

>That was not the hubs fault, it was the installers..


well i could see the blame for the outer bolts coming loose being the installers fault (im not saying who the installer was, you might note that) but my understanding from the above discussion is that the allen key bolts would not have loosened up if there were conical washers putting tension on the hub internally, like the aisin has but the warn hasnt.

i suppose when i reinstall the aisin items i am going to locktite the outer bolts but they were tight before i left for death valley and as i used them (they certainly didnt wiggle around when i locked them upon leaving pavement going to ballarat) but somehow now they were not even finger tight...which means the washboard or other general use loosened them between then and saturday when i discovered them barely hanging on.

are you guys sure you didnt sneak over to my place and loosen them up while i was sleeping?

but there are other considerations as noted above too, primarily the fact they stick out another inch or more out past the stock hub covers and are therefore susceptible to getting bashed into rocks, etc.

so ive decided to just pack them away for an emergency and go back to the stock ones, which it seems in most driveline cases is the way to go. doesnt seem like you can much improve on the OEM item for a lot of this stuff (eg: front hubs, u joints, etc) which seems pretty impressive to me anyway.

thanks for the tip though...

one love
jah bill