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I have a 2011 f350. I took my locking hub assembly out the other day and found loose needle bearings inside the hub. I took the entire locking hub assembly apart and sure enough all the bearings had come out. Does anyone know if I can buy a new needle bearing to press in or somewhere I can get the part to rebuild the locking hub? I’d hate to just trash it since the vacuum seals and everything still work.
I would imagine that the old one is just press in/press out. I'd try pressing the rest of the old one out, can't hurt anything. You won't find the bearing anywhere that I know of as far as something like "hub bearing replacement kit" or anything like that. BUT, Napa is usually really good to me with this stuff and will take a bunch of measurements and get me the right bearing. OR, once your press the rest of the old one out, sometimes you can find a number on it and try ordering that way.
I'm offering no help but I did not think these hubs could be taken apart and serviced. It looks like you broke a tab and bent that cap assembly pretty good.
It was actually really easy to take apart. Breaking the tab was my fault for putting too much pressure on one tab. The cap ring is thin metal and can easily be molded back. It actually didn’t bend that much. I bought some use manual locking hubs on eBay. Plan is to take the bearings from them. Will post back about how that goes.
If you take both the good hub and dismantled hub (so they can get a good look at the bearing) to a bearing supplier they more than likely can find a replacement. A bearing part number would be very helpful.
Replacing the entire hub with OEM is $160 surely a new bearing will be much cheaper.
Just an update. I ended up buying some oem takeoff manual locking hubs on ebay. The only difference between the manual hubs and the automatic is the ring on the bottom of the plastic cap, the spring used, and the diaphragm.
Manual hubs use a big metal spring that when the cap is turned pushes against the cogs to lock them.
Automatic hubs use an enclosed spring mech and a diaphragm. When the **** is turned it acts similar to the manual hubs. The spring mech pushes on the cogs and locks them. In auto mode vacuum is used to pull the diaphragm inward which pushes the spring and pushes on the cog locking it.
I swapped the auto parts over to the new manual hubs. Now I am able to manually lock them (which I couldn’t before since they were seized), but the auto still doesn’t work. However, I did replace the axle seals due to a bad axle joint, so I may have a leak there from install. Need to get a vacuum gauge to test.
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