I have an 02 F250 4wd, and the needle roller bearing on the inside of the front hub is making a hell of a noise. I am 400km from home, and I am unable to get a bearing for 3 days. There is no play in the wheel, just a lot of noise. Will it get me home?
Pete

 

Doubtful......

 

If you lock in the 4WD hubs, that will stop the rotation of the needle bearing around the axle shaft end. That may help you get home. If its that loud, good chance you are screwing up the axle end already.


Good luck.

 

Lock your axles as ironmine said. How do you know it is the needles? There should be some shake in your wheel.

 

I swallowed my pride and paid $780 for a National hub from korea that was the only one available in Sydney, Australia's biggest city, I could not get the bearing alone for 3 days. In two days time I will have a Timken Hub that I ordered last week landed from Rock Auto for $450, at least I will have a spare for next time. How many miles do you guys get out of a hub?
Pete

 

I've got 120K miles on mine and they are the originals.

 

My truck crosses the occasional stream/river, and I needed a hub at 30k and then 37k, under warranty. I got about 30k out of those two hubs. I have 50k on my present hubs.

I guess you know that the needle bearing is available from places other than Ford ... NAPA & Timken B2110

 

I think a lot has to do whether you drive through a lot of water or not. Mine has 145k miles on both (I am assuming they were never changed). I also believe they will last as long as you own the truck if you grease the needle and hidden roller bearings about every 50k miles. I packed mine full of grease through the ABS sensor hole a while back and they are doing great with all the grease staying in. If you don't have the sensor hole you can easily drill a hole and then plug it or add a zerk fitting. I have a post with pics in here on it. Both my hubs took a full mini-tube of grease. If you look at Guzzles needle greasing web page you will see that he greased the main hub bearing even though he didn't mention it.