Hello there,
Yesterday I re-built botht he steering knuckles of my Jimny with all new seals and a jolly good re-grease of the CV's and bearings.
The reason I did this was I could see that there was grease on the swivel balls and that it was quite thin, like it was thinned out with transmission oil.
I was right and the axle tube oil seal on both sides had failed and some oil actually ran out of the knuckle when I undid the swivel ball seal on one side.
I replaced all of the other seals - the one on the hub and the other one on the knuckle it's self. I'm not too sure that I needed to do all of them as I think that the one on the hub at last may be something to do with the vacuum side of things on the vacuum operated freewheeling hubs - which I have done away with in favour of KAP fixed hubs.
None the less they are all new and I have changed the front diff oil as it will be spinning all the time now with the fixed front hubs.
Having been used to an SJ, I have to say that these knuckles were soooo much easier to strip and re-build!
The knuckle does not split, so there are less surfaces to rub clean with emery and then seal up again when re-building and the swivel ball seals do not have the felt seal and are all one part, rather than trying to hold it all together and get the bolts in with one too few pairs of hands! Also just wacking the wheel bearings up to a certain torque is much quicker and easier.
Luckily all my bearings are in good condition so they did not need changing, but with plenty of Greenlaning on the cards for the new year, including Gatescarth Pass in April, I bet that won't stay the case for long!
Thanks to Dave at
stores.ebay.co.uk/Bits4Vits
for the wheel bearing removal tool.
Kirkynut
