A couple steps forward, and a giant leap back.... that's how I roll.... I'll explain, this is gonna be a long one I'm afraid. New problems - or "opportunities...."
OK, first let's wrap up what I've done with the steering knuckles and the preload with the alternate specs, and all that. I pulled them apart again, and took out one more shim all around, which puts them at right about 12 pounds of pull both sides.
Herk, what you say makes good sense. And I thought about it too - the part number for these pivot bearings and cups are the same, 1941 to 1971, at least for replacement. So when they revised to a higher figure, that should logically be retroactive, it's the same parts. That helped me decide to go tighter. But now I'm down to zero shims left on the drivers side, and I want to keep both sides the same, so looks like it's going to be 12 lbs!
OK, did that, torqued them and called it done. Then I went to the next thing - installing the grease seals. That seemed pretty straight forward, and it was. And with a coat of grease on the "big balls" (yes, my axle has big balls....hehehe) - they turned a whole lot easier, they felt reasonable. Grease matters.
So then I turned them back and forth, feeling how they felt (pretty good and smooth) and I was getting happier, and even starting to think about tie rods and a drag link.
BUT THEN - when I turned the drivers side all the way to the right - it got stuck there. I tugged and pulled, looked at things, and it looked OK. Got it pulled loose and turning again. Did it again, and it stuck again, and I couldn't get it off of the full right turn position.... This is on the drivers side. So now we need some background info.
I have to confess some things here. This truck was rough. It clearly got run into the ground and parked for a
reason. Or a
bunch of reasons. The old cowboy definitely got his money's worth out of it - and he wasn't wasting any money on routine maintenance those last few years, either! It got permanently parked in 1962, that's a known fact from surviving family still on the property in Oklahoma where I got it. Sat for 55 years. OK, that's fine, I understand that's what I bought when I bought it.
So back when it was on (and off) the road, the drivers side axle (it had the Bendix "5 balls" axles in it) had busted apart at the steering u-joint. He then obviously went to just 2 wheel drive after that. They just removed the outer section of the driver side axle. (That's why the other hub just had a soup can on it, remember that story, Scramboleer?) And he broke the left leaf spring, main leaf, and it all dropped down on the frame. And that in turn broke the plate across the front of the engine at the motor mount - because the engine plate was trying to hold up the weight of the left side of the truck after the spring busted. I imagine all this happened in a fairly close time frame. It would hardly have been driveable with all that going on.
So that busted axle banged around inside the (driver side) Big Ball of the knuckle, and moved some metal around, not in a good way. When I started out, I had to clean that up in there, get rid of burrs and smooth things so the new (Spicer) axle would clear everything and be happy turning in there. I also had to knurl the upper bearing cup bore, because it wouldn't seat/grab any longer. But the knurling and some green goop have held it tight,and it all lines up true.
So - back to the knuckle being "stuck" now - I determined from studying inside that the rubber seal had gone PAST the edge of the ball, and dropped inside where it doesn't belong, jamming and preventing it from turning back. I pulled off the felt and the retainer. It's hard to get a good photo of the problem, but here's a couple, inside first - that's where I drew with a black Sharpie to show where the seal has intruded -
And from the outside, you can see it falling in, marked with chalk here. It's gone past the point where it shouldn't go -
My first big concern was that some of the grinding on the outer edges of the Big Ball circumference had gone too far. That it no longer extended as far as it needed to for the seal to work right.
I took the seals all back apart and pulled the knuckles back off. But as looked at them closely, the original "edge" was still there - the grinding and smoothing have only been done on the INSIDE, so shouldn't affect the surface area where the seal moves on. I measured and compared both sides in every way I could think of (passenger side was not damaged), and they are the SAME. That outer contour is unchanged from the old inside damage.
Here's the inside, you can see the evidence of the old damage and the "smoothing out" that's been done.
So next I started to try and understand if somehow it was turning too FAR - what made it stop. And it kind of looks like the interior boss of one of the hub bolts is the thing that stops the rotation. I see that happening on the passenger"good" side, too. (I know there is also the bolt on the axle housing that serves as a stop - but that's for turning the other direction.) -
And on the interior of the knuckle housing, that boss IS damaged and ground away a bit on that particular bolt hole - that's the hole just right of center in the photo below. Although there is still plenty of meat, and SOME of it is as tall as the original position.
So what have I got? I know the REAL answer is maybe go get a better axle housing, but then I just spent a month building a diff for nothing! I want to make this work. I was thinking of building up weld and filing and grinding it to shape to extend the ball edge - but I don't think that is what is needed now. Maybe build up that boss where the hub bolt threads in, to make it stop sooner?
Or am I maybe being stupid and this is something about how I have installed the seal wrong, or a common problem (I hope!!) that others have had.....
Told you this was going to be a long one!