Learned scholars- redoing my knuckles yesterday (for the second time in 3 weeks, due to a badly seated inner axle seal) I noticed that the rubber gasket on the 3 week old dust cover seal was completely shredded. Upon inspection, I found that the inner side of the hub was pretty gouged up where it seats on the seal. It looks like a rock got caught between the hub and knuckle and tore things up pretty good. I also noticed that hub was out of round (e.g. no longer circular) where I installed the inner hub gasket behind the inner wheel bearing.
I dug the older dust cover seals out of the scrap pile and noticed that there was no rubber gasket left in them whatsoever. That means the damage was there prior to my first knuckle job and I failed to notice it. I didn’t really notice any problems with the knuckles before the first rebuild, they were just old and I wanted to do the job to learn about the construction of the axle. Point being- they seeemed to be working fine without any rubber on the dust seal.
Now to my question- what does the rubber gasket do? It doesn’t have anything to do with the CV grease staying in place because the spindle gasket has that pretty well taken care of. It also doesn’t seem to keep the wheel bearing grease in place either because the inner hub seal does that.
Also, how critical is replacing the hub if it continues to shred the dust seal gasket? I Dremeled down any burrs in hopes that it would save the gasket. The car rides smoothly at all speeds. What other problems could it cause.
Hopefully these pictures give you a good idea of what I’m talking about.
1. Newly shredded seal.
2. 28 year old seal with no rubber.
3. Damaged hub.
4. Part number for reference
I dug the older dust cover seals out of the scrap pile and noticed that there was no rubber gasket left in them whatsoever. That means the damage was there prior to my first knuckle job and I failed to notice it. I didn’t really notice any problems with the knuckles before the first rebuild, they were just old and I wanted to do the job to learn about the construction of the axle. Point being- they seeemed to be working fine without any rubber on the dust seal.
Now to my question- what does the rubber gasket do? It doesn’t have anything to do with the CV grease staying in place because the spindle gasket has that pretty well taken care of. It also doesn’t seem to keep the wheel bearing grease in place either because the inner hub seal does that.
Also, how critical is replacing the hub if it continues to shred the dust seal gasket? I Dremeled down any burrs in hopes that it would save the gasket. The car rides smoothly at all speeds. What other problems could it cause.
Hopefully these pictures give you a good idea of what I’m talking about.
1. Newly shredded seal.
2. 28 year old seal with no rubber.
3. Damaged hub.
4. Part number for reference
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