I just got done doing the ball joints on my truck as per Racerguys write up. Everything went back together smoothly but now my 4 wheel drive wont engage? Also I can't spin either hubs manually, this was like that before I worked on it can't say how long it's been like that.

 

You have the ewwyuk ESOF? Or OoOoOh manual locking hubs? When you say you can't spin either hub manually you mean with the whole front end off the ground you can't spin the hubs/tires??

 

sounds like the manual/auto hubs aren't working, first thing I would do is with the truck in park and the parking brake applied and chokes under the wheels (yeah I am doing a little CYA by making sure I said all the appropriate safelty ideas in this thread so it's not my fault if your truck runs you over ) then with the engine running put it in 4x4 and crawl under the truck and see if you can turn the front driveshaft if not then the Tcase is engaging but the hubs aren't, and probably need replaced (this is actually pretty common with these hubs) I went with a set of warn manual hubs on mine, removed and plugged the vacumn lines to the steering knuckles and haven't had a problem with it since.

 

You can do it with the truck not running. It's a little quiter.

 

thanks everyone for the input. I don't think it's my transfer case since my 4x was working before I had to disassemble my axle to do the ball joints. I don't really want to go to a manual hub, since I live where it snows and I like switching from 2 to 4 wheel drive at will. So I guess I maybee need to start looking into a new set of hubs, if all the vacuum stuff is working correctly.
Fordbronco69 I meant with the wheels on the ground neither one will spin from the free position to the locked position, I can't even get it to spin while it's off the truck.

 

After you price out the replacement hubs you might change your mind on going with manual hubs. But yeah thta sounds like the problem.

 

I just priced the right side hub on my 01 F250 $272, ouch.

 

That's incredible, I just paid $186 for a SET of WARN Primiums.

 

Now you know why I switched to manual hubs, doesn't make much sense to me to buy an inferiour product for twice the price and have it last half as long (if your lucky)

 

yep i did the same thing as Orezona but a while ago. Warn Premiums that take .9 turn to lock from free to lock, unlike stockers that take .25 turn. it also gives you the ability for 2low, for jockeying trailers, and for always positive locked hubs. looks alot better too!

 

Another thing that I didn't mention on this thread but have on others is that I am starting to believe a major portion of the problem with the sealed unit bearings on the front of our trucks may very well have something to do with the vacumn bieng exerted on teh back side of the bearing by the activation of the 4x4. When I replaced my right bearing on my truck I noticed that all the grease was floating around inside the hub, then when I replaced my left one I noticed the same thing but at that time I also had a bad problem with the auto hub so replaced those hubs with warns and disconnected the vacumn line and since I also had a ball joint going out at the same time I ended up taking hte right one back apart (at this time that one only had 4000 miles on it) and I noticed a lot of the grease was bieng pulled through hte seal on that new bearing. well after taking the vac lines off and plugging it up I ran the truck for 12,000 miles and pulled it back apart just out of curiousity and since I had used 4x4 several times inbetween I figured it would tell me a lot well it did there was not grease behind that bearing so it's my thought that possibly the reason they are failing so much expecially when used offroad a lot may very well have to do with the vacumn pulling all the grease out of those bearings until they are run dry and subsiquently fail.

 

Baby,

It sounds like you have had your front hubs apart. The "factory sealed" ones?

How did you do that?

Pop

 

Are you talking about the hub or the bearing? I haven't taken one of the hubs apart except with a sledge hammer to get it out. but the bearings just have a "nut" on the backside that will allow you to take it apart, I did this to see if it was possible to rebuild it with new bearings and after much research I got ahold of timken (which makes the bearings used in the ford unit bearings) and found out that it is setup specifically that you can only buy that bearing if your a buyer for Ford, not even the aftermarket suppliers of those units can actually buy the bearings from timken they have to buy the entire unit from Ford (which is good to know since it means you can buy your unit bearings for the front of your truck from anyone and it's going to be just as good as the one you bought from ford because it actually came from ford)

 

Why speng $1600 on the conversion instead of spending $270 on Ford's?

 

Well because you will spend the $1600 once where as you might spend the $270 per side multiple times. I assume that is what you meant.