Hub Driver Stuck...

eprothe · Feb 2, 2020

Hello,

I'm part way through changing the swivel-joint seals on my Td5 Defender.

I've done one side, so now I'm starting work on the other side.

While removing the hub drive flange, I've hit a problem which I'm hoping somebody else has encountered and can offer me advice on.

The massive (sorry - I can't for the life of me see how to resize it!) picture below is of one of the hub drive flange bolts that I've removed. It really didn't want to come out and, when it did, it had the strange collar around it that you can see in the picture.

That collar turned out to be metal and crumbled away shortly after I took the picture, but what was it and where did it come from? Has the threaded hole in the hub started breaking up in some way?

The other problem is that the hub drive flange is absolutely stuck in place. On the other side, I removed the bolts and fairly easily pulled the flange off the drive-shaft. I've had a good old go at wedging a screwdriver between the hub and the flange on this side, but it's completely jammed onto the drive-shaft - it turns independently of the hub, though, so it's not stuck to that.

Before I find my puller and try to pull the flange off by the lip around it's end, any suggestions as to why it might be stuck and what to do next would be much appreciated.

Thanks very much

jamesmartin · Feb 2, 2020

part of a thread repair perhaps
td5s are prone for the drive members to rust solid on to cv,brute force or cutting

eprothe · Feb 2, 2020

Thanks for that - I have to say, I don't fancy cutting it...brute-force and ignorance it is

jamesmartin · Feb 2, 2020

drive member is cheaper than a new hub

eprothe · Feb 2, 2020

True...still a pain in the bum to do, though

eprothe · Feb 4, 2020

Hello,

you were quite right - it was rusted on:

Luckily, I was able to borrow the mother of all pullers and draw the flange off the shaft...

Thanks for your advice

eprothe · Feb 7, 2020

Hello,

well, this job has just taken a bit of a frustrating turn...

I've stripped down the swivel housing and found that the reason the swivel-joint grease was leaking out past the seal was because the housing was somehow loose on the swivel pins.

When I took the housing assembly off the axle and separated the ball from the housing, here's what I found inside:

The top-pin bearing has failed and has then been chewed up inside the swivel housing, probably either when I adjusted the preload on that side a few weeks ago or when the track-rod end failed and this wheel flapped from lock to lock while I stood on the brakes and became rapidly and rather unexpectedly religious...

The swivel-housing has then dropped down onto the ball and worn a groove in it; my question is, is the ball still usable?

I've got new pins and bearings - if I put it back together, the damaged ball surface won't be in contact with anything and will be behind the swivel housing seal, but if anybody can see how this scoring will cause problems, I'd be very grateful if you could point it out to me before I go pressing in the new bearings and reassembling the whole hub assembly.

Thanks for any advice

jamesmartin · Feb 7, 2020

see if the groove can be fill with metal putty or such and dremel it smooth, they only need a little preload,toomuch will bugger the bearing again

eprothe · Feb 7, 2020

Thanks for that.

Setting the pre-load is pain in the arse to do - Haynes says about 3kg~5kg is what I'm aiming for - I've got the first side at about 6kg, but I'm expecting that to drop off once it's worn in a bit...do you think I should take the pin out and put another shim in?

Whoever it was at LR who thought mounting the brake-pipe bracket with the swivel-pin bolts was a good idea was an idiot

Thanks for your help

eprothe · Feb 10, 2020

Hello,

right, I've put the hubs and wheels back on, tightened everything up as per the manual and taken it for a test drive.

On the plus side, there's no grease leaking from the swivels, so the seals are presumably still sealed and nothing catastrophic has happened there.

On the minus side, when I got back, the D/S wheel started making a high-pitch vibrating/squealing noise. On jacking up that wheel and turning it by hand, there's definitely a bearing-type squeal, like a metal ring turning on a shaft. It's definitely not the brakes rubbing - totally different noise.

When I put the hub on the stub-axle, it was a bit harder to get on than the P/S, but the bearings seemed to seat properly as I tightened up the hub nut. The hub was a bit harder to turn that the P/S one, but I assumed it would loosen up and settle after a bit of a drive...

Has something gone wrong while I was putting the hub on the stub-axle or does this just sound like bearing failure?

Thanks for any help

tottot · Feb 10, 2020

What type of hub do you have, the later single "stake" nut or the older double nut system? Either type needs setting correctly.

eprothe · Feb 10, 2020

The later, single "staked" nut.

I followed the Haynes setup procedure:

checked the bearings and packed them with lithium-based grease
fitted the hub onto the stub-axle
tightened the axle-nut to 30lb.ft (my torque-wrench isn't marked in Nm!)
spun the wheel and pulled/pushed it to settle the bearings
tightened the hub-nut to 150lb.ft
staked the nut

...this worked fine on the P/S, its just the D/S which is squealing.

Thanks for your thoughts

jamesmartin · Feb 10, 2020

eprothe said:
The later, single "staked" nut.

I followed the Haynes setup procedure:

checked the bearings and packed them with lithium-based grease

fitted the hub onto the stub-axle

tightened the axle-nut to 30lb.ft (my torque-wrench isn't marked in Nm!)

spun the wheel and pulled/pushed it to settle the bearings

tightened the hub-nut to 150lb.ft

staked the nut

...this worked fine on the P/S, its just the D/S which is squealing.

Thanks for your thoughts

what bearings did you use,
the spacer in between the bearings is selectable,you chose the right size to suit bearing tolerance

eprothe · Feb 10, 2020

Because I didn't have any problems before I took the hub off, I just put it back on un-molested. All I did was check the bearings turned apparently smoothly and packed in a bit more grease...

I've ordered a new set of bearings, but I didn't see a spacer in the kit I ordered - a problem, do you think?

Hub Driver Stuck...

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