I have a 2013 f250 with the manual t-case set up and my right locking hub is hard to turn. Does it just need to be cleaned or is something else wrong? The other hub turns fine.

If it needs to be cleaned what is the procedure to do that and is it pretty simple?

ETA. The hub has been a little harder to turn for a while but it seems to be getting worse.

 

 

the locking hub system has some cheap plastic parts

before trying to remove locks that you can not turn...I would squirt half a pint of gear oil into the hub housing into the fitting where the vacum line connects...then right away go drive it for a few minutes...the oil may help loosen things up and it might turn so you would not have to remove the dials. be advised that a lot of the oil will leak out if you have a vacume leak .

 

My hubs don't have the vacuum system so no port to dump oil into.

I also noticed that the internals of the sticky hub are noisier when they move than the other side. I can hear the lock pop in/out as I turn the dial back and forth from free/lock.

 

Dont use wd40 it will swell the seals on the dial. Gear oil is way too thick and will also make the seals swell, your best bet is to remove the dial disassemble it and apply a light coating of waterproof grease

 

Got it apart. The dial is what turns hard, everything else seems fine. Looks like I need to somehow get the dial out of the housing and clean that so is tires easily.

Also I'm going to clean all the gears and bearing up and relube. Will some mobile 1 synthetic grease work or should I just use regular wheel bearing grease? It had some kind of green grease on it.

 

I couldn't figure out how to get the dial out so I just put it back together. I didn't want to break anything since I need the truck tomorrow.

Also, I hope there won't be any compatibility issues using the red mobile synthetic grease, it's for wheel bearings and other parts but I found I was out of brake cleaner so I just wiped the factory green grease ofo best I could get and applied the new grease. I'm know I didn't get 100% of the old grease off. I guess I could leave the hubs locked in so the little bearing doesn't spin until I'm sure the new grease is ok.


ETA. I have the newer style hubs that are held on with three screws, not the other style like you see in all tje YouTube videos.

 

Anyone here actually get the activator dial apart? I took my hub all apart and cleaned it and regreased it. The actual problem is with the manual turn dial. How do we get this apart to clean the internals without destroying it?

 

Once or twice a year I spray mine with fluid film, work them back and forth. Do that a few times and they are good to go

 

I found out the hard way you can't take them apart without damaging the rubber diaphragm. Try to work it loose and lubricate it from the outside.

 

Thanks guys for the replies. I ended up using 3-in-1 oil as I could not find any silicone spray. I used a pliers to work it back and forth 100 times and black nastiness was coming out of the outside of the handle piece. Seems to turn okay now. I might buy a new OEM one off of eBay for $100 and keep it behind the seat for emergency use if this job fails.

it’s odd how many forum posts indicate to NOT use any grease on the hub gears. Yet when I read the factory service manual it clearly recommends lightly coating the gears with XG-11 bearing grease. I’ll follow the OEM procedures.

 

I had this on one of my trucks. Had Warns in it when I bought it, but the caps were corroded and causing the dials to turn hard. Contacted Warn, who said they'd provide me with new caps if I could provide proof I bought them...I explained 3 times that I didn't have any receipts for the lockouts since they were on the truck when I bought it, but would happily BUY new caps. Never did get new caps, and just carried an old pair of rusty channel lock pliers in the truck to engage 4WD since everything else worked fine.