TOY: RE: Birfield Joint or Hub

["Payne, Mike K." <MPayne1@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I talked to "Chris" at All Pro and he had a lot of interesting things to say
and from what he said it is either a broken Birfield which is lower on my
list then a cracked or broken front drive shaft.  I remember a friend saying
that he saw a crack on the front drive shaft but I looked at it later and it
looked fine.  I believe that a close inspection will reveal the crack.  It
fits those symptoms a little closer, and Chris said it was unlikely I broke
a Birfield with the type of four-wheeling I do... I don't rock crawl I just
try to send myself to an earlier, muddier, and deeper grave every time I go
out.  Another words, I am not quite to the same caliber of 4 wheeling as you
all are, mostly from where I grew up (Florida) and where I live now
(Wisconsin) both have lots of deep mud holes and swamps but not much for big
rocky trails.

Anyway, he did tell me that this was possible (to change a Birfield without
the work I am going to do) and I will save this set of instructions for that
purpose but I am going all the way this time.  This will give me a better
overall understanding, and I will 'know' what is in those assemblies rather
than hoping they are in good repair or wondering how old they are.

I will need to replace the seal every year (again according to Chris or at
least try to) to keep it from Drooling...  which I had thought was a much
more major mechanical defect.  So I will try to avoid doing the whole nine
yards at those intervals.

I am also going to go with the All Pro Kit and the more expensive Bearings
thanks to all of your advice... if you aren't going to do something right
then what is the point in starting as they say.  So I have put everyone's
advice to use and I will be using a lot of it in my upcoming week of grease
filled days.

Happy mud-climbing guys and I will be sure to send everyone a mud-pie in
thanks if all of this comes out right. :)




 -----Original Message-----
From: 	Scott Muir [mailto:wsmuir@islandnet.com] 
Sent:	Thursday, September 07, 2000 3:34 PM
To:	MPayne1@allstate.com; toyota@4x4wire.com
Subject:	TOY: Birfield Joint or Hub

Mike, I bring this up only as an option, but there is a huge shortcut you
can do on this if you like.

You can skip the pulling the hub/spindle apart and essentially get at the
birfield by popping the Kingpins.

Here's how you do it...

. take the dial off the Hub and remove the c-clip from the axle stub
. remove the wiper retainers on the back of the knuckle
. detach the brake hose so it hangs free.. (unhook the caliper hardline from
the hose and then remove the U shaped retaining clip which keeps the hose
end captive)
. extract the upper king pin. (as paul mentioned, note the shim plates and
make sure you don't lose any or mix them up...  you may not have any or they
may stay captive with the knuckle or the kingpin so keep an eye peeled for
them.)

You will be able to manipulate the whole assembly so it come off exposing
the knuckle and the birfield.

There are pros and cons to this procedure, but it is a huge cost and time
saver.  I've done it this way to pull the axle shafts out enough to remove
the front diff.

pros:
. does not require you have a hub socket (its probably a tool you should
have anyways, but depending on resources, can be hard to find)
. does not require a torque wrench
. you can skip the allpro hub kit
. don't have to reset the wheel bearing preload.
. don't need to repack the wheel bearings.
. only need 500,000 shop towels instead of the usual 1,000,000.
. the procedure is much simpler than a complete tear down.


cons:
. you don't get to do any kind of visual inspection of spindle and its
bearings or the grease for that matter..
. in terms of weight, the assembly is heavier than the sum of its parts
(hehe) and you might need an extra pair of hands when re-mounting it...
Think the whole thing weighs around 40 lbs????
. you're possibly at risk of getting dirt where you don't want it, simply
because of the bulk.
. you pretty much have to disconnect the brake hoses.  You can cheat a
little if you do the tear-down since the brake hose can support the weight
of the caliper and the backing plate, but I wouldn't hang the whole assy off
it. so you're in for a brake bleed.


If you decide to do it this way, the parts list shrinks to...
. inner axle seal (this is mounted in the axle housing; the inner end of the
axle passes through it)
. wiper seal kit(s?) (felts, rubber gasket, metal gasket retainer (flat
metal helix) and the felt retainers) AND, when you have the thing apart,
take note as to the order these things go back in...   Myself I always
forget.. I think the helix thing goes between the felt and the rubber but I
don't remember.
. (4) kingpin bearings..
(if you REALLY REALLY want to cheap out on this, you'll probably be able to
get away with only 2 of them.  It has been my experience the lower ones are
usually in good shape..  they stay lubed and don't get hammered on like the
upper ones.  The upper ones usually dry out and get the worst of the
pounding... its pretty much guaranteed the upper bearings are toast and will
fall apart as you remove them)
. possibly the star gaskets which go between the hub cover and hub body.

Tools you may consider getting for this...
. Snap-ring pliers ( you don't need these, but if you get them don't get
cheap ones, compare them with better ones...  the silly little ones with the
interchangeable tips on them are annoying and barely helpful) these would be
to remove the c clip on the axle stub
. a flare nut wrench (10/11 mm) useful for your brake line fittings.  This
is particularly useful for keeping your fittings from becoming vise-grip
only fittings.
. a 17mm deep socket (king pin studs)
. a 1/2" drive flex bar (nice long one (2 ft?).. aka breaker bar; i love
these things)
. 5lb or better hammer
. large drift (punch) or mild metal bar to unseat the cone washers..  (I
think this is some kind of right-of-passage for us solid axle owners... soak
the damn things with penetrating oil the night before)
. smaller drift (1/4" diam. end but about 8" in length) to remove the kinpin
bearing races (captive in the knuckle)
. spindle nut socket (assuming you decide to do a complete tear down)
. torque wrench to use with spindle nut socket (ditto)

Couple of notes on the write up of Roger's... IMHO WD40 is next to
useless...  Its pretty weak as a pentrant.  I don't think it has much
staying power as a lube either.  If you want a penetrant, use something like
liquid wrench.. If you want something which will keep threads from rusting
or galling, use antiseize compound.

Cone washer removal is a bit of an art... depending on the condition of
them, you'll get different results with different techniques.  My favorite
is the hammer and drift method.  I didn't have much luck with the
screwdriver method.  You rap the stud as if you were driving a nail with a
nail punch. Once you see the washer has moved a bit, usually needle nose
pliers is enough to get them the rest of the way out.

Anyways, good luck...  There are tonnes of us around who have done this
whole thing before (many times)... Its almost a no-brainer so long as you
don't do anything reckless..

Scott.

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