okay, I just did my ball joints and tie rod ends. So i've been driving for a couple days and out of curiosity I felt my front hub after about a 1/2 hour drive and noticed the passenger side was pretty hot to the touch, hotter than the drivers side, and on the verge of being to hot to keep my hand on it.

I didn't clean the spindle and hub up when i tore it down, but I kept it all clean and in order. I added grease though upon re-installation to all the needle bearings and smeared it all over the spindle before I put the hub on.

Do i need to take the hub and spindle assembly all apart and give it a good bath and grease it back up or is this normal for it to be this hot?

 

Yes, you need to take it apart and find the problem. That is not normal. However, make sure you don't have a brake problem, like a sticking piston, as serious brake drag might cause even the hub to be hot.

Anyway, they should run cool like 2wd hubs do. You may have over tightened the nut, or have bad bearings.

 

Thanks Gary, I guess that will be my project this weekend. I knew I should of cleaned all of it up and re greased it, that is what happens when your in a hurry.

 

You may have over greased the hub too. It only requires a very light coating. But I'm leaning with Gary on bearing tension or brakes as the most likely culprit.

 

there are a couple things here that grabbed my attention

1) it appears you didn't clean out all of the old grease
2) if you mix two different types of grease, if may not work as it should
3) did you just wipe grease onto the bearings, or did you pack them properly? i use a "handy packer" and it works great for packing them, and its fast.

also, when checking for bearing heat, its best to drive for awhile then stop without using the brakes much. i have hot hubs after stop-and-go driving, but nice and cold after a long highway trip when i stop without using the brakes much.

 

I hope you're not talking about the bearings. What over greasing will do is cause the hub seal to leak as the grease heats to operating temp and expands some. I can't imagine too much grease, provided it's the right type, causing the bearings to make the hub too hot to hold your hand on.
Hub bearings need to be fully packed. I also about 1/2 fill the hub cavity. No excessive heat, no seal leaks.

 

filling the hub cavity is totally unnecessary. i just pack the bearings, wipe a layer of grease on the races, and install the bearings. i also wipe a little bit on the inside of the seal to make sure it survives.
extra grease stuffed inside just makes a big mess next time you take it apart.

 

No. If I meant bearings I would have said bearings. The 4wd hubs I was talking about the 4wd hubs.

 

No, you don't want to fill it.
Even Timken recommends grease in 1/3-1/2 of the hub cavity (not counting the area taken up by the spindle).

OP, yes, as others suggested, I'd pull it apart and clean all of the old grease out and repack. Aside from allowing a close inspection, including inspecting the bearings for damage that may have been causing the over heating, the overheating that occurred might have been enough to cause breakdown of the grease, reducing it's lubricating effectiveness.

When inspecting your bearings, this bearing damage analysis guide from Timken may be useful for identifying the cause of any damage you might find.
http://www.timken.com/en-us/products...ochure5892.pdf
And this is an even more detailed reference:
http://www.timken.com/en-us/Knowledg...ence-Guide.pdf

I did a quick scan of it (I haven't read it in a long time) and I was 1/2 wrong about overfilling the hub. It will also cause overheating. My dad taught me in the 60's to only fill about 1/2 and I always have.

 

While I agree that a bearing cavity should only be partially filled, there are millions if not billions of boat trailers running with fully-filled cavities due to the use of Bearing Buddies. I've run them on all of my boat trailers for decades and have never had a bit of bearing problems, even when towing from Oklahoma to Lake Powell, which is over 1000 miles away. I make it a practice to check the hub temp by hand at every stop and have never had one hot, even after hours at speed on the interstate.

 

well i have often wondred what the phrase [brunt up with greese] ment now i know.

 

I spent a couple hours on this fathers day afternoon to go ahead and take the hub all apart and clean it up and repack the bearings. I took pictures so you experts could tell me if I'm doing it the right way.

So I took the hub off and this is what it looked like:





I took the seal and bearing out of the back of the hub with my handy dandy seal and bearing driver.







I then got to the nitty gritty and started cleaning out all the old grease. Yummy



After lots and lots of rags coming out like that and about a gallon of carb cleaner (it seemed like it anyways) this is what the finished project looked like.





I then cleaned the bearings all up real nice.



And repacked them with my handy dandy Lisle bearing packer. It did a great job and you can see how it pushed out all the old grease.







I then installed the first bearing and seal and packed the bearing cavity with some grease.



I put the hub back on the spindle after coating the bearing surfaces with a light coating of grease...



I put the bearing in with the washer and nut and lock nut making sure to not over tighten the nut, got a nice shot of the spindle nut socket your gonna need to do this job, $20 at carquest....





Cleaned up the lockouts...



and installed....









So this was kinda a walk through on everything I did, hopefully it works out good and doesn't get so hot.

 

Looks like a good job, although I usually clean the bearings with brake cleaner so ensure they are spotless when the new grease goes in - with the same Lisle packer, btw. But it looks like you got the old grease out with the new.

What did you torque the nut to and did you then back it off?

 

I tightened it till the hub would make about a half to a full revolution when spun with the hand. Old trick I learned from someone down the road.

 

It is actually supposed to be tightened to a specific torque spec as you rotate the hub, and then backed off a certain Portion of a turn. I don't have access to the spec's at the moment, but can get them tomorrow.

I think the over-torque causes everything to line up and/or seat properly, and then backing off gets you to a known state. I know that many times when I've put the hubs back together the point I thought they should have been adjusted to was too loose after going through the procedure.