Care and feeding of Warn M2 Hubs

Figured I'd start a separate thread from my build so this was easier to find in the future. I bought some Warn M2 locking hubs to put on my CJ5. Having more money than time (and working between 50 and 75 hours a week means I don't have much of that either...) I found a cheap set that needed some caring. I've got a full shop at work full of cool tools to use, but I'm trying to keep this as shade tree as possible, mostly because that's all they ever need.

Here's where we are starting:




Ok, took them into the parts washer to clean them up, but a guy could just as easily use WD40 and lots of rags. After around 50 years of use, that crud can really be on there. Gasket scrapers are nice for cutting through the first layer.

First step, and you are going to have to use your imagination here a bit, but we are looking at your lockout bolted onto your hub.





Remove the 6 bolts from the outside. There should be a tabbed washer on each one under the crud, so make sure the tabs aren't bent up before wondering why your socket doesn't fit. 9/16" is the size. You might have to give the dial body a smack with a dead blow or a block of wood and a hammer. You can get a nice sized dead blow from Harbor Freight for about $7 and you really should have one anyway.

3/8-16 is the thread size and if a guy wanted to get fancy and replace the bolts with studs I'd use at least a 2.5" long. The hub from back face to the bolt surface with the washers is just a hair under 1.5".


Now, with the dial body off, we are looking at the hub body. Again, imagine there is an axle shaft stuck inside that snap ring.



Take special note of those dowel pins around the outside of the dial body to the left. Most are removed in this picture, but 5 are in place. There are 12 of them in each hub. They should be firmly in there with old grease, but may not be...so don't loose 'em. A box placed underneath to catch stuff as it falls out is really handy. Easier to find in there then after it goes bounding across the garage floor and into the pile you've been going to clean up next weekend for the last 12 years.

Remove the snap rig from the axle shaft and the hub body slides right off. Might need some love from the ol' dead blow here too.



Now, time to clean them up. Once you have them looking halfway decent you can see what's actually going on in there. The hub dial has a left hand 4 lead thread. When the hub is in the free position, the locking mechanism is screwed all the way down. When it's in the lock position, it is just about flush with the back lip of the dial body. You can remove the dowel pins and screw the locking mechanism all the way off. Now you can clean it all up a bit better in there. Unfortunately, the allen bolt that retains the dial is staked in (punch between the edge of the head and mating part), so you are really risking trouble trying to get that loose. A guy could use a drill bit to open that punch mark up, but then you risk it all coming loose down the road. If your hubs are in bad shape and need it, by all means do it. Just use some locktite when you are done.


On that note, what does a guy do if one of the hubs is stuck and he doesn't want to remove the staked bolt? No problem, all you need is a few chunks of old leather belt, a pair of pliers, and a vice. If you don't have a vice, you could thread two bolts back into the hub and do the same procedure. If you look closely, I wrapped a piece of belt around the two bolts and snugged that into the vice. Now I could carefully work the hub dial back and forth with the pliers to try and get it moving. Unfortunately, someone tried this on the jeep at one point in the past without the leather so one of my dials is a bit marred up. Oh well, it's a Jeep. Once the dial starts to move, squirt some WD40 in there and keep at it. It will eventually loosen up and should turn just fine. Mine was VERY stuck, so keep at it, it will eventually come out this way.




Alrighty, someone magically took all the junk off that hub with some 400 grit sand paper and it looks plenty fine to go on our Jeep, so we are going to set that aside. Now for the fun part. The hub body is full of those evil little needle bearings that we should take out, clean, and re-grease. When you flip the hub body over, you'll see a snap ring on the back. That's all that is between you and spending the rest of the afternoon looking for all 51 rollers.



Grab that box you used when you took the dial body off and set the hub body inside of it. I like to throw a few paper towels in the bottom, makes it more comfortable for the needle bearings. Take the snap ring off and carefully lift the hub body off of the splined shaft. The rollers should stay in the hub body. Depending on how far your parts washer solution or WD40 got, they may stay put in the old grease pretty well. Or not. Don't ask...#51 is always a real you-know-what to find. The rollers are .090" diameter, I'll get the length later today...just in case you needed to find them on mcmaster-carr or something.

A dental pick works really nice to roll them out of there onto your papertowel. Wipe them out and clean out the inside of the hub body. Wipe some grease all the way around the inside of the bearing and put them back in. A pair of tweezers are indispensable for this. Ask the wife first. Or don't, but make double sure they don't smell like grease when you put 'em back. On second thought, $0.99 is cheap insurance to just buy a new pair and keep in the tool box. I like to VERY VERY carefully put another finger tip of grease over the top of the rollers after they are in place, just to be sure they are lubed.

Once you get #51 in, there shouldn't be any open space. Good way to double check your counting. All your fingers three times, your toes twice, and the big toe one more time. Slide splined piece back in there and get the snap ring on before those rollers get any bright ideas.

That's pretty much it, I plan to use RTV to seal it up, but the gaskets are available or a guy could easily make his own. I know some don't even use a gasket, your call.

 

Here's a picture I grabbed of the staked bolt when I tackled the second one this morning:



The rollers measured .090x.395 in length, very consistent. Not sure if you can get them anywhere or not. I was worried that I'd miscounted the rollers last night when I did #2 and came up with 50...I'm telling you, #51 is a bugger, even using the box. It had slipped under the paper towel.


Hope everyone finds this helpful! I'd say I had 2-3 hours into this, working on it as my part was running in the CNC. You'd have your time into getting them off which is a whole 'nuther ball game in it'self. I have one busted off bolt on my drive flanges, so I'll be attacking that with a left handed drill bit and keeping my fingers crossed. Might make up a drill bushing quick to keep it centered in there nice so if all else fails I can drill it out to the tap size and pull the threads out. We shall see.


Final product, shown in The Box™

 

The hubs look great. Always satisfying to finish up a little project.

 

Nice riteup but a few notes from my experience. Iv fixed up probrobly 20 sets of these. I always remove the brass dial. thats the main reason these things arnt working 99% of the time. Many sets the bolt isnt even punched. I dont think iv ever seen a punch as heavy as yours. But when it is punched its relatively easily removed without drilling it . Behind that dial is often filled with mud and oxidized aluminum crust that has to be cleaned out. There is a rubber o ring around it which shouldnt be removed unless you have a new one. because it will stretch and probrobly break. there is a second O ring inside which is usually easily removed and in good shape and a thin washer thats always bent. I just hammer it flat again. Another thing is the screw cup. Take note of which hub each one came from because sometimes the dowl pin is drilled in a slightly different spot making it difficult to reinsert the bolt properly. Its got to be matched to the brass dial it came from. When setting the depth in relation to the back of the hub. You may find you need to set it in a notch or so to maintain a reasonable amont of thread engagement on the cup. If it comes out too far the cup threads will get messed up at the very tip. Also I never remove the needle bearings. I clean up the hub with that part in place and when its all clean outside I take it out and gently wipe out the old gresse. Its always pretty clean in there so i rub a new layer on and clean up the inner hub and reinstall it. In other words there have only been one or 2 times when the inner hub was worn where the needle bearings ride that i needed to mess with the needle bearings. the axle lube does a pretty good job of keeping those oiled unless they ran dry

 

Thanks for the info! I really wrestled with removing the dial. I'm anal with stuff like this, but like you noticed, that sucker is staked good. If you look at the allen bolt, you can see that it was tightened to deformation, so she's torqued down good too. Maybe the guy on the line in 1957 just had a baby that looked like the milk man or something.

Both dials are turning really nice and smooth, so I'm going to leave them be for now.

 

Nice write-up/tech article!

cell post

 

The hubs turned out nice. Good job.

 

Those tabs that lock the 6 outer bolts, does anyone know where to find those??

My mismatched hubs don't have those...

 

From the FWIW dept: The gasket is called a Drive Axle Flange Gasket and has an Omix part number of 16727.02 . It took me awhile to find it and finally found it on Amazon.

 

Nice writeup!

I got replacement rollers from McMaster-Carr.

 

Walcks carries those locking tabs now, but he is pretty proud of them.

Don

 

Thanks Don,

Now that I have my D30 I won't have to pry them from Walks...

 

Were you able to get the whole bearing or just the needles ? Part # ?

 

I have these same M2 warn hubs with a leaking dial "v" ring. Anyone come across a source for that V shaped o ring seal? I thought about buying square shaped stock and making it a v with razor blade and glue ends.

 

Just the needles. McMaster #

98381A542​

http://www.mcmaster.com/#98381a542/=s7caqf

 

Interesting, my bearings measure 3/32" in diameter and 13/32" in length

 

My bad, thought you were talking about those tiny needle bearings in the roller bearing -(

 

Does anyone has part number/source for the o-rings?

 

@mickeykelley can you please advise me on a couple points during reassembly?

• Does the bevel on the O-Ring around the bronze dial chamfer towards the front or the back of the dial?
• Do I add grease to the back of the bronze dial or around the o-rings themselves?

Thank you!

 

Lock Out Hub Lock Washer Kit Warn Hub Only