Spindle and upper trunion damage

[GeoRoss]

Impressive painting. I bolt it all together and then just hit everything that remains exposed with black rattle can.

That’s the plan.

I chuckle to myself recalling this started off as simply doing front rotors and a quick knuckle job because I was in there.

 

[GeoRoss]

Finally have a day this weekend for reassembly. Realized I needed to press in the new wheel studs for some final paint. I don’t have a press and my usual press hook up couldn’t help me last night.

What to do?



I have a little press at work I use to break rocks. Greasy 5T press for the win! FYI @NLXTACY sells a set of bushing press tools. The 39mm one is barely small enough to use. Add that to your description Joey.

 

[SNLC]

FYI, you can also get the knuckles from Toyota still. Cheap in my opinion, I got a set of non ABS a couple months ago for $150 each. Lots of dumb asses over torque the caliper bolts and strip them out. Pretty common from what I have seen and not bad price wise to fix with new parts.

Terrain Tamer sells a nice spindle as well.

Do yourself a favor and get a brass hammer and punch set. That way you won’t be a newb and damage parts with a dead blow and a cold chisel.

Cheers

 

[SNLC]

Oh and for death wobble related to braking. Check those caliper mounting bolts.

You might be surprised how many are mangled up from idiots. I have seen them drilled and tapped with coarse threads, heli coils in them and just trashed threads where somebody thought silicone would be good to hold the 90ft lbs.

It is one of the first things I check now when rebuilding a knuckle.

Cheers

 

[GeoRoss]

FYI, you can also get the knuckles from Toyota still. Cheap in my opinion, I got a set of non ABS a couple months ago for $150 each. Lots of dumb asses over torque the caliper bolts and strip them out. Pretty common from what I have seen and not bad price wise to fix with new parts.

Terrain Tamer sells a nice spindle as well.

Do yourself a favor and get a brass hammer and punch set. That way you won’t be a newb and damage parts with a dead blow and a cold chisel.

Cheers

I considered new knuckles, in for a penny sort of thinking. OEM prices I found were $275 each. This project has seen so much mission creep I elected to stay with the knuckles I have and only replace the stuff I really had to. Caliper threads (and all others in the knuckle) were run through with a thread chaser (not die) and were really clean. I could do it by hand. They mostly seemed fine so I just knocked off the burs.

I did use a brass hammer and brass drifts. I wasn't the one who chewed everything up. Anyway all good now. I just got back from an overnight camping trip with one of my daughters, picked up all the grease and gear oil and will reassemble this afternoon. Fingers crossed it goes easily.

Oh and for death wobble related to braking. Check those caliper mounting bolts.

You might be surprised how many are mangled up from idiots. I have seen them drilled and tapped with coarse threads, heli coils in them and just trashed threads where somebody thought silicone would be good to hold the 90ft lbs.

It is one of the first things I check now when rebuilding a knuckle.

Cheers

I did buy new caliper bolts and washers. The threads in the knuckle are really clean. The funny thing about my death wobble is that it appeared after the cruiser sat for almost a year. Tire rotation and balancing helped a lot. I'm not expecting this knuckle R-n-R to fix it. I did know that the brakes were acting like they were severely warped and so that is what started all of this. I just realized I haven't pulled my old pads out of the calipers to check for even wear. I don't want this to turn into replacing calipers and brake lines.

I've checked all suspension bushing and the tie rod ends. They all seem fine to my inexperienced eye. If as I suspect I still have death wobble, I'll swap tires with a buddy and see if it goes away. If that doesn't solve it I'll order a parts canon.

Thanks for the suggestions.

 

[GeoRoss]

Booooooo! Frickin rookie move right here.

 

[itbrokeagain]

What is the difference in the new drive flanges vs the old ones?

 

[Tools R Us]

Booooooo! Frickin rookie move right here.

View attachment 1957745

 

[GeoRoss]

What is the difference in the new drive flanges vs the old ones?

This is an imperfect comparison. The one on the left is the 1994 OEM. The one on the right is the later model Joint Fuji. You can see differences in how and where they taper. I don’t know if this is an OEM-Joint Fuji difference or a early model 93-94 vs late model 95-97 difference.

 

[GeoRoss]

Well, after the axle seal embarrassment yesterday I was luckily called on for family time and homework help. (Thank you Mrs GeoRoss and #3 daughter)

Back at it today to at least get one side done. I got to the Birfield assembly. These are new Nitro birfs from @cruiseroutfit First they are stiff and lots of sticky anti corrosion stuff. I took note of how they are assembled when I took them apart for cleaning. It was not easy and required a brass drift to rotate the cage that final bit to remove the balls. The star orientation is easy. This side accepts the axle stub.

You’ll notice it is very different from the OEM in the background.

The Nitro cages are different than my 1994 OEM. OEM on the right. The OEM seems more robust.

I’m not concerned.

One thing that had me stumped on the cage orientation when I checked Mud. The OEM birf has one side that is tapered to the exterior of the cage and a slight taper to the interior on the other side. It is my understanding the the exterior tapered side faces the axle stub with OEM birfs.

The NItro cage doesn’t have the exterior tapered side, but does have the interior tapered side. They ship with the non tapered side facing the axle stub and the interior tapered side facing the tire.

I’m posting this for anyone else who gets new Nitro birfs and gets confused. I couldn’t find anything with my weak search kung fu and it took me awhile to go with it as shipped. Also, if you grease up the new birf before disassembly you will thank yourself later. This probably applies to all new birfs

Non tapered side as shipped.

Interior tapered side.

 

[itbrokeagain]

I have been beating on a set of nitros for a few years now. You should be just fine

 

[Bambusiero]

I've had a car that sat for a few months and then drove real "lumpy" due to flat spotting the tires.
That was a low slung sporty sedan with well isolated suspension.
If the same was happening on big tires?

 

[GeoRoss]

I have been beating on a set of nitros for a few years now. You should be just fine

Yeah, I’m not worried. People have asked to see differences in after market items so I showed som pictures.

 

[GeoRoss]

I've had a car that sat for a few months and then drove real "lumpy" due to flat spotting the tires.
That was a low slung sporty sedan with well isolated suspension.
If the same was happening on big tires?

That is my thinking. I’ll test it by borrowing someone’s tires.

 

[GeoRoss]

I’m calling it a day. It’s been a bad weekend at GeoRoss’ Land Cruiser Garage and Emporium. I’m glad I’m not in flat rate.

I’ll leave a picture of my shenanigans and you’ll see why I needed to step back.

 

[itbrokeagain]

I think you put your knuckles on the wrong side. Looks like the way it sits now the caliper will be on the front of the knuckle

 

[GeoRoss]

I think you put your knuckles on the wrong side. Looks like the way it sits now the caliper will be on the front of the knuckle

Yep, I’m a dumbass. I had everything sorted by side and was on autopilot. I just grabbed the one on the “left” side and forgot things were rearranged last weekend when I had to move stuff around.

I don’t think anything got fubared, but I guess I’ll find out. This little project is testing my faith in my mechanical prowess.

 

[MoCoNative]

Don't feel bad, I've done things like that too, although those knuckle housings do have large cast letters on them denoting which side they go on. If you hadn't gotten so crazy with the painting maybe you could still see them. At least they are not packed with grease yet.

My dad and I were doing the front end on his 1986 F250 when I was kid, he even let me help quite a bit on that one with tear down and assembly. We got the hubs all done, bearings torqued down and calipers on when we realized the brake backing plates/shields for both sides were laying against a milkcrate still, all cleaned up and ready to go back on. On that vintage Ford, they are bolted under the spindles, big redo on our parts.

 

[MoCoNative]

A tip on painting, go raid the closets and get the good old heavy metal clothes hangers, not the new light ones, but heavy wire ones. Don't try to make your own bends in them even, just cut them apart to make double ended hooks. Hang a piece of rigid pipe from the ceiling or between two ladders. The cloths hangers will hold alot of weight, and you can just hook the part and hang em up, no need to individually wire up each piece with tie wire. Sometimes if a part has a surface I can lay it on, I will pick a part up through a bolt hole with one of these hooks, hang and it and spray it and set it back down and grab another part if I don't have enough hooks.

 

[jpoole]

I think we've all been there but very few of us post pictures or even leave the evidence in place long enough to allow time for pictures! That would be a situation where I would at least have to get the knuckle off before stopping, else I'd have no chance of sleep.

Good on you for posting your mistakes since they make me feel better for being a slob and putting my axle back together with the stock paint still largely covered in decades of grease residue. My axle may be ugly but at least the knuckles are on the correct side (sorry, couldn't resist).