'03, 7.3L, 126K, needle bearings look to be shot as I can wiggle the axle shaft. I have the autolock hub out ... including a spring which I have not seen on any posts so far, .. and a busted up something plastic (seal?). I am now working in the four bolts for the hub. The locking nuts are rusted (Chicago weather and salt) quite solid. I have PB blasted for 24 hrs and still cannot budge. Impact wrench does not fit unless I start removing way more parts ... Ideas, this is what I did .. thanks for the help.

 

I was able to get my cordless impact in there to loosen the hub bolts. If yours won't fit, get a big breaker bar and stand on it.

Make sure you replace with OEM quality parts, not the discount parts store junk or you'll be doing this again real soon.

 

I have tried the breaker bar and am concerned about 'rounding over' the nuts. Once this happens, the situation gets way worse.

Thanks for the input ... I plan to use a Timken hub which I seen good reviews on. But still open to comments as I won't order parts until fully disassembled and total damage assessed.

 

If you have a well-fitting 6 point socket on there, I don't see how you could round something that big off.

 

One off .. with a longer pry bar/pipe .. 3 to go. Yep on the six point socket, impact style. Thanks for sure....

 

The new hub will come with studs. You have to re-use the nuts. Before you put it back together, get one of to clean the bores out real good and use plenty of anti-seize on the studs and threads when you re-assemble. Torque them down really good and it should come apart much easier next time.

 

All four out .. hub pulled .. seems to be solid except for the needle bearings that are rusted and hard to move. Outer shaft is rusted where the needle bearing goes as well. I will measure it to see if ground up. Again, hub feels solid ....

Replace the hub? Just the needle bearings and seals .. before I took it apart, with a pry bar, the axle shaft did move in the hub .. seals in hub and axle are gone.

 

I'd just replace the entire assembly, even though it's a bit pricey. Timken/OEM or bust, I've done Mastercraft or Masterpro or whatever the part store brand is - all of them failed within a year, one seized on the freeway and sent me and my Chevelle through a road sign.

You can also make a seal tool to press the seal on the stub shaft for about $15 from a hardware store using a pipe flange and length of pipe so there's no need to buy the actual tool. There's a link on what exactly you need in the second ball joint thread in our tech sticky up top

While you have it apart, if you question the U-joints or don't know when they were installed is personally opt to replace those while everything is blown apart.

 

You're going to need new stub shafts if the needle bearings are rusty and have scored up the shaft at all. That needle bearing turns whenever the truck is moving, even if it's in 2wd, so any scoring on the shaft will quickly eat up a new bearing.

I would get new Timken hubs, Spicer stub shafts, and Spicer axle-u-joints for it. That's what I bought for mine when I did the same job earlier this year.

Unless you're on a tight budget, it's not really worth replacing just the needle bearing IMO. You could get by, but your hub bearings are probably not too far behind. The stub shafts are mandatory and the u-joints just make sense to do since you have to press them out of the stub shafts anyway.

You'll also need vacuum seals and a seal installer if you plan to keep the ESOF capability.

Edit: Dang, Matt fast-posted me.

My two cents on making the seal installer yourself... I figured if you're asking these kinds of questions it's because you've never done the job before. Installing the vacuum seal with the homemade tool and having never done it before is difficult. A lot of people say that they ruined a couple of seals, then had to go out and buy new seals AND the special tool the second time. It was my first time doing it, so I took the safe albeit expensive route and bought the tool. I was glad I did.

 

Just to be sure, the spicer parts are these:
2002692 outer shaft
SPL55-3X u-joint

 

Those are the same parts I used on mine.

 

how do you determine if the studs on the hub are coarse or fine? I see both available as replacements. Thanks.

 

It goes by year. I forget what the cutoff is. Mine needed coarse threads but I don't know what yours takes offhand. Someone else hopefully chime in.

 

Looks to be fine thread as I tried as I tried one of the lug nuts on a unit at the local auto store .. a no name brand and not what I will be buying.

When I pulled the auto lock hub, there was a spring in there. I see no reference to this anywhere. Any idea what this is and is for? I also found what appears to be a busted up ring of some kind. Any ideas of what this is?

 

That spring is supposed to be inside the auto hub which doesn't come apart unless it breaks. You need a new auto locking hub on that side.