Knuckle Rebuild - Real Time Tips

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NeverGiveUpYota said:
Glad you got all that figured out. Funny how many of us have to go over and over things before it all clicks. Good your doing it the right way too. Its nice that you have all sorts of awesome mud folks near you!
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Yes agreed. Seems there are a good number of LC folks around here willing to lend a hand. Feeling pretty grateful today as I know we are all not so lucky. Looking at it now it makes perfect sense as to how this is put together and I made a bigger deal out of it than I should have. In my defense I didn't have the parts in front of me and was going mostly on memory with regards to the wheel stud thing. After getting back from my trip, and reading the posts in here, it was easy to see how it was put together.

Had a great talk with @ceylonfj40nut yesterday on the phone just about all matters LC's. Really motivated me to get this project done to get to SAS this year. Will be fun to finally do something with this truck other than work on it. Hopefully I don't run into any snags here along the way and this thing goes back together as easily as it came apart.

Painting tonight to make these hubs shine again.
 
Some progress......

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I'm late to this party, but felt like throwing in my $0.02 regarding the pre-greased felts.

My first couple rebuilds I installed the felts dry and let the grease soak in. All others since then I have installed pre-greased. The main reason being that I find the felts easier to install and less likely to tear while trying to slip over the bell. As a small perk, the knuckle is sealed immediately, rather than having to drive around a while before the grease works its way through. Lastly, to the cleanliness point... it's a Toyota birfield... only the recently serviced are clean.
 
Got quite a bit done yesterday. @NeverGiveUpYota you were right. The rear spring spacers are trickier than I thought they would be. Seems these would be better if the insides were bored out just a bit more so you could easily slip them over the spring center pin. Keep the spacer in place on the center pin while you lower the axle down onto it. But no matter, I got them to finally line up. I found getting the spacer started on the center pin seems to work best. Then lower the axle down on the spacer. You have to almost get it lined up perfectly though doing it this way. Hard to do when working alone. But by 10 AM I had it all done.

Got the driver side knuckle torn down and have it soaking in solvent for cleaning. Should be painting it today hopefully for install later today. Greasy mess. There was no grease in there at all. Hopefully birfield is fine. Glad I did this now for sure.

Got the passenger side knuckle mostly put back together as well. So its coming along. I need to get some studs to hold the spindle and various other bits together while I bolt it down. I saw where getting some 80 series manifold studs work well to hold all the parts together while you begin bolting everything down. Don't have those but will get some bolts and cut the heads off them today. I am not taking enough pictures as I do this. Here are a few of the progress. Yell out if you see anything amiss.

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You’re making great progress. One thing I love about Toyota’s design is that every single nut, bolt, and gasket only fits in one place. It just doesn’t line up any other way.

My first birf job took three months for the first side, and three hours for the second side.

And yesterday, a bunch of us met up at one of our friend’s shops and did two axles’ worth in six hours. It definitely gets faster!
 
Looks like I'm going to definitely have to do the drivers side as it is leaking. Going to be a little hard to find the time to try and do it myself and not sure if I have the tools to do it. I have watched one video, not sure how many there are or if they are all the same. Thanks for posting your progress.
 
bottombracket said:
You’re making great progress. One thing I love about Toyota’s design is that every single nut, bolt, and gasket only fits in one place. It just doesn’t line up any other way.

My first birf job took three months for the first side, and three hours for the second side.

And yesterday, a bunch of us met up at one of our friend’s shops and did two axles’ worth in six hours. It definitely gets faster!
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Thanks for the encouragement here. Yeah its pretty nice how it all goes together and makes a lot of sense once you are in there doing it. The real time suck for me is all the cleaning and painting of parts. If it were not for that I would have been done this weekend. I don't have a parts washer or sand blaster so its just me and a bucket of paint thinner scrubbing on this stuff till its clean. Just takes forever.

MrMcgoo said:
Looks like I'm going to definitely have to do the drivers side as it is leaking. Going to be a little hard to find the time to try and do it myself and not sure if I have the tools to do it. I have watched one video, not sure how many there are or if they are all the same. Thanks for posting your progress.
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I like the OTRAMM videos on how to do it. Videos here:




Toyota Steering Knuckle Reassembly

Ryan goes through tear down, using centering tool, and reassembly. Helped me a lot. I did not do the knuckle centering stuff as I don't have the tool. Lots of folks seem to just re-use existing shims the same way they came out with good results so that's the route I took. In the video above he goes through the whole centering procedure only to discover the numbers lined up with the existing shims anyways. Basically just confirmed he did the math correct I guess. I just thought it would be good enough to use the shims I had so that's what I did. As for tools, I am just using basic hand tools and metric sockets. Only things special I used were a set of flare nut wrenches for the brake lines, the pull scale, the little studs for centering the spindle when you put it back together, a Toyota OEM seal driver for the inner axle seal, a seal puller, brass punch for driving the trunnion races out. For the seal driver, a correct size socket and extension seem to work for folks. I found the OEM seal driver worked really nice as the seal is held by the driver when you line it up. Made things super easy. I promise you if I can do this, anyone can.

Did not get as far as I wanted yesterday. Got a late start on cleaning and painting and had to wait for paint to dry before putting the driver side knuckle back together. So I was stuck there. But got the pass knuckle all buttoned up and torqued. Did get the driver side trunnion races hammered out and new ones back in, and the new inner seal installed. So knuckle ball is ready for re-assembly. Without the hubs and waiting for paint to dry, I was sort of stuck from going any further, so I called it a day. Progress photos look much like Saturdays but most of Sunday was just hours of cleaning and painting. Again, this would be fast if it were not for all the painting and cleaning. What a whip, but worth it in the end. Thanks all for the help.

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My Toyota OEM seal driver:

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So cool.
 
See you this evening when you come to pick up your rotors/hubs. Drop me an ETA.
 
ceylonfj40nut said:
See you this evening when you come to pick up your rotors/hubs. Drop me an ETA.
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I should have mentioned here that @ceylonfj40nut got my hubs and rotors pressed for me. Yeah I should be there maybe like 7:00-7:30 if things go the way I planned. Thanks for getting this done. Really saved my backside on this one.

By the way, super glad I went through this before SAS. The driver side knuckle had no grease in it at all so had I done any wheeling, I may have risked breaking a birf. I was a little worried that I should wait to do this after the trip but glad I moved forward with it before. Saving grace here is I don't think this truck was ever really put into 4WD. Parts look great. I am confident that anything I am doing here will only be an improvement to what was there.
 
Zjohnsonua said:
My first couple rebuilds I installed the felts dry and let the grease soak in. All others since then I have installed pre-greased. The main reason being that I find the felts easier to install and less likely to tear while trying to slip over the bell. As a small perk, the knuckle is sealed immediately,
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I did by the way put a bit of grease on the felts before putting them on. Seemed to help with all the things mentioned. Worked out nice for me anyways.
 
Gretsch said:
OK I ordered some studs from Bryce at CO. Got the aftermarket ones they sell. Called my local Toyota dealer for OEM and they had to have over $10 per stud. I backed out of that deal and went with aftermarket. I know folks say get OEM but $120 just to switch out the brake rotor is steep. I'll see how these studs come out and if I can avoid damaging them while doing so. Maybe I can reuse my factory ones. I don't know. Wish me luck.
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Last night I loosened the lug nuts on the "new" 60 I just bought. I needed a 2' breaker bar. Most of them felt like they were going to break the breaker bar but they all eventually went. There isn't a lot of rust on the threads, they look pretty good. Just the tapered seat had some corrosion that had to be broken. On each wheel, one of the lug nuts was the open nut style rather than acorn, I guess they replaced the locking nuts with those. On one of those, I actually broke the stud off. So that will need to be replaced. I'm wondering if I should replace all the other studs as well to be safe, since I torqued so hard with the breaker bar? I'm not too keen on doing that if it can be avoided. But I don't want to be driving around on stressed studs. I've heard about the rear left wheel falling off these things.
 
OK so something was brought up in this thread here. Seems there is a bit of confusion with regards to how the knuckle spindle seals work. This post illustrates the issue some:

g-man said:
I think the gasket pictured above (post #11) between the dust cover and the dust seal actually goes on the other side of the dust cover. I believe this because it has a loop in the bottom that corresponds with a drain slot in the spindle. Also because in "B" of this step it says to put on the gasket, dust cover, and seal. (I assume in that order)

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also because Cruiser outfitters says here :between the backing plate (aka dust cover) and the spindle....

Brake Backing Plate Gasket- $5.50 each
Between brake backing plate and spindle
One required per side, 2 per axle
(Fits 69-9/75' FJ40/55)
Part# HG60010
Brake Backing Plate Gasket - $5.50 each
Between brake backing plate and spindle
One required per side, 2 per axle
(Fits 9/75'-97' FJ40/55/60/62/80)
Part# HG60011
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So I am at the point of still being able to fix this but I have put the seal sandwich together like the FSM diagram here:

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Diagram seems to show the spindle seal, then spindle, then dust cover, then another seal, then the hub dust seal. But the order in the actual text steps seems to show the seal between the dust cover and the hub dust seal as being actually placed between the spindle and dust cover. @g-man brings up a solid point. I am at the point of still being able to fix this but if I go much further it will be somewhat of a PITA to fix. The @OTRAMM video shows the seal being put on between the dust cover and the hub dust seal like the diagram does and how I have it. But the actual wording in the FSM seems to say different. The diagram and the wording don't seem to match up if you assume that the wording is meant to have the bits put on in the order written. Anyone know for sure which way is correct? Cruiser Outfitters have the seal listed on their site as going between the spindle and dust cover (backing plate). Want to get this correct before I go much further with this. Any help appreciated.
 
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Gretsch said:
Hubs and Rotors mated again. Again big thanks to @ceylonfj40nut for getting this knocked out. Really helped me out.
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Thanks for making this thread, and comments on the other one. I'll be tackling this job sometime soon.
 
Where can I order the full rebuild kit? Do I have to order the bearings separately? Thanks

Gary
 
Cruiser Outfitters is where I got mine:


Kit I got had all the trunnion bearings and races (Koyo), seals, etc. Fairly complete kit. I don't recall if I had to order the wheel bearings extra or if they were included in the kit I got or if I had to purchase them as an add on. Just call Kurt and they will hook you up. They can source tools and even the marlin seals as well if thats what you are into. Got brake rotors and pads as well and a 54mm socket for the spindle nuts. Just call Kurt (or any of the other guys there), and they will hook you up. Couldn't be easier.
 
I don’t know if Kurt has decided to start including the right gaskets for warn hubs in the rebuild kits yet, so if that’s what you have you’ll have to source those separately. The supplied locking hub gaskets are for Aisin hubs.
 
I don't know if he has, but I bet he can source them. But yes the gaskets in the kit I got are for the AISIN.
 
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