I have 91 with automatic hub's that are junk, and i also have 85 ranger with manual hub's, Is it posable for me to swap these ? if so what do i use other than the lockout hub's ?
Will check back in a day or two will be out of town, thanks for the help and have a good weekend.

 

Warn makes a manual hub kit. Warn also made these junk auto's, as you describe. I love the auto locks. Never have to get out or the truck for anything. They performed flawless for me - even on the Rubicon.

 

These guys can probably tell ya for sure: http://www.accessconnect.com/superwin.htmThe part number is different (by only one digit) for the Explorer than For the '85 Ranger but it might be just a matter of getting the correct conversion kit.

It looks like your chances may be good.

 

Unless someone has changed the '85's front end, the '85 Ranger would have a Dana 28 front end; Explorer has a Dana 35 front end. Hubs aren't interchangeable between the two. Sorry.

 

Mrshorty - you deserve the info of the decade award. How do you know all this advice you give? You are the encylopedia of late 80's early 90's ford light truck technology! If this forum had a way to give recognition - I would be on that in a second. Thanks!

 

Thanks for the kind word. My only claim to experience is working on my BII and Explorer. Everything else I know about these things comes from reading posts. I asked this particular question a few years ago when I thought my auto hubs were bad and wondered if I could test the idea by putting the manual hubs from my BII on the Explorer to see if that fixed it.

 

I'm having issues with my auto hubs, I'm sure you guys have experienced this. The drivers side mostly and once the passenger side hub with try to engage and start buzzing. Its very annoying. Its a '94 Explorer with 97k miles. Original front u-joints and hubs as far as I can tell. Any thoughts?

 

Not experienced this but read about it here: http://draco.acs.uci.edu/explorer/autohubs.html

Here's the text:

Contributed by David Van Horn
Ok. Let me tell ya a long story.

About this time last year, my 92 started making an intermittent buzzing, maybe one incident every month or so. Put it in 4wd, and the buzzing goes away. Hmm..

About a month ago, I took it in to sears for alignment, and when I get it back, I can't drive more than a block without SEVERE buzzing and chattering, again it goes away if I lock the hubs...

Lotsa talking, reading, and searching ensues, where I learn about how the hubs operate, and why they were buzzing. My dealer says $275 each, plus labour to replace, "nope, can't service them.." BS.

Folks, they aren't that hard. When the driveshaft in the front begins to turn, it operates a cam in the hub, that forces a piece to engage between the powered axle and the freewheeling hub. If this piece rubs, then it buzzes.

Why does it rub? Glad you asked! Failure of the ball bearing at the end of the hub! The bearing has too much slop. It rolls fine, but it allows the sliding assembly of half of the cam, and the sliding piece to contact the hub, and thereby turn the axle. This can get so bad, that it tries to engage the hub on the other side!

The ball bearing comes right out if you have a pair of snap-ring pliers, (maybe $10) and the bearings cost me $10.40 for the pair (One in left hub, one in right hub)

Put in the new bearings, clean up the sliding piece with a file, (just take off any burrs created by the rubbing) close it up and drive away!

The original bearing part number is NSK 6200Z, which crosses to a Timken 200S or an *** 6200.2ZR.C3

Call your local industrial "bearings-r-us", and make sure they have them in stock. According to midwest bearing (my guys) they are very common, and they usually stock them.

It's literally a one hour job, you will get greasy, but it's easy, and if you can change a tire, you can do this. All this repair happens in the part of the hub that comes off when you remove the front tire.

So remember the dealer quote, 2 x 275, plus labour (I don't know what they would have charged, but taking two tires off and putting them back on isn't much labour! Or, $10.40 for bearings, $10 for pliers you probably don't have (buy them at the bearing place) and a little gas to run down the parts.

My 4WD is humming again, my wallet is still nice and fat, and EVEN if it dosen't hold up forever (why?) I'm only back to what I had to figure on when I started.!!!

Oh yes.. I DID ask the dealer about replacing those bearings. "nope. you have to buy the whole assembly, the bearings aren't available as a replacement part". True enough, they AREN'T available from FORD..

 

Gee, I wish I would have know that before I replaced the autohubs on both my '91 an '92 with Warn manual hubs. Great info.

I still think the manual hubs are more reliable though. I did have one "failure" with my Warn hubs--I was driving next to a deep rut and the ground collapsed beneath me and left me with all four tires off the ground. I tried jacking up the truck and putting some boards under the front passenger side so I would have three wheels on the ground but I was unable to get it out without having to get it pulled out. It turns out that the Warn hub got turned to "Free" at some point in my adventure. I now think I would have been able to drive it out with the boards and all if not for it being disengaged.