trouble removing front axle joints
haha so i go to change my wheel bear assemblie, and it was a nightmare, everything comes off easy, then i got to the axle nut, and of coure its a 1 3/4" nut, which none of my neighbors had, so i go up to the local homoe depot, and borrow a 1/2" drive ratchet, 3/4" to 1/2" adapter, and a 1 3/4" socket, well long story short, i broke the ratchet, and after almost 4 hours of PB Blaster, beatin of it, and pullin on a breaker bar, it finally breaks loose. so i take the ratchet and everything back, and the guy was cool about it, he said "just buy a new one for me, it doesnt have to be expensive, just something i can use around the shop." the guy was nice when i brorrowed it, he was like im not gonna charge you for this, im gonna let you borrow this in good faith, that youll bring it back.
you wouldn't have broken the ratchet if you had used a 3/4" breaker bar and a piece of pipe on the end of it to begin with.
you would have had the nut off in about 15 seconds if you had used a penetrating fluid instead of that smelly water pb crap.
you would have had the nut off in about 15 seconds if you had used a penetrating fluid instead of that smelly water pb crap.
When I seperate a bearing from the knuckle, I usually take a fat chisel, put it on the ear of the bearing mount, and smack it with a sledge. Working all three ears back and forth usually gets it to back out untill I can get a chisel between the bearing and knuckle and drive it out nicely. An air chisel works, but can chew up stuff badly.
I feel almost bad about saying this but, I just replaced my right hub bearing last night and it was surprisingly easy. With what everyone says about these things I've never done them before. I let a shop deal with it and paid out the wazoo. I decided to do it myself this time cause I'm sick of blowing the money on it. It came apart without heat or banging. I pulled it out by hand. I'm half relieved I don't have to spend all weekend banging on it and half pissed cause I could have done them myself all those times.
actually at the time i didnt have a 3/4" drive, and i had nothing else but pb. but when i did get the 3/4" drive breaker bar, and pipe, it took 2 of us (me and my stepdad) to break the thing loose. i think what caused this one to go bad, was the nut being over tight. ive always tighted them with a ratchet, then a little more to get the hole lined up to put the cotter pin back in, and ive never had problems with them going bad.
and tommorw ill be replacing the other side(which is worse than th one i replaced already (yes they both went bad), so ill let you know how that goes



