Half a knuckle job

[Cruiserdrew]

I got home from work a bit early today and did the driver side knuckle. I had all reconditioned stuff ready to go including knuckle, steering arm, wheel bearings, rotor and caliper. I got it apart and all cleaned up, then reassembled in about 4 hours of continuous work. The old knuckle had a thick shim only on the bottom, I put it together with one thick and one thin top and bottom per Mudraks reccomendations. The preload came out to 14 on my new spring scale from Marlin Crawler. My question is, will that difference of one thin shim change the axle spacing enough to make any difference? I don't have the SST to set it exactly. The new Koyo wheel bearing kit from Marlin is great. I got all new hardware (bolts, nuts, wiper kit, knuckle studs, knuckle bolts, knuckle washers, spindle nuts, even the 6mm bolts for the face of the lockout) from CDan. It looks stylin' but only to another cruiserhead.

Immediately I could notice that the slight shimmy in the steering was gone. When still assembled the knuckle had a distinct "center" where I guess it rode most of the time. I don't believe the knuckle had been done previously and the old wheelbearings were showing all of their 194k miles with streaks and some pitting. Just for the record, I used Amsoil heavy duty moly grease for the birfield and knuckle bearings. The wheelbearings got Mobil 1 grease which has no moly.


The only downside is that the brakes pull ever so slightly to the right. I put in a new pre-loaded caliper and the pads are a different type, so I hope that's the problem. When I do the other side tomorrow, I'll put in a matched set of pads when I'm all done.

 

[Cruiserdrew]

Done!

Replying to my own post but...The knuckle job is finished. Total of 8 hours over 2 days. It was a big timesaver having all those cleaned and painted hard parts, so the stuff I took off is now my collection of front end spares. The brake pull is gone, rotors are not vibrating so I think all is well. I'll re-torque the knuckle studs and reset wheel bearing preload in a couple of days after everything settles in.

The old lower knuckle bearings were shot. The races in particular were very worn and did not look good. The passenger side preload was 13 pounds so I think it's all good. This is the second knuckle job I've done and it gets easier after the first time. My best advice it to use as much new stuff as you can afford, not just the kit you get but also the little stuff like fasteners, wheelbearings, brake hoses etc. The cool thing about the Toyota design is that everything is easily replaceable, so a rebuild is literally as good as new.