What's better than knuckle puddin.......no puddin

I believe I have a fix for the age old problem of king pin bearing failure and oil/grease puddin leaking onto the floor. For those of us that have spicer joint front drive shafts, Spicer makes a sealed, greasable u joint just like on our drive shafts. Yea, I know you will have to disassemble the hub to grase. If you have lockouts then I think the interval could be long (or never as some po attest). I may be wrong but even the folks running Rzeppa or Bendix joints would leak less and be well lubed with straight grease. The problem has always been that the axle assembly is supposed to sling lube up to the upper king pin bearing to keep it happy. I began this quest with a search for sealed taper bearings. Believe it or not there are some, just not the one for our king pins. I found some stack on washers mated to rubber that are used in the bicycle world but was not wild about the idea. Continued searching popped a hit for a sealed micro spindle bearing. It is a upgrade for racing carts I believe. I called the store and got a reference to the manufacturer. He is willing to make the bearings but tossed out a 500 unit run to make it worth his while. The estimated cost is 5 - 9 bucks per bearing. That is not bad as I just paid 27 dollars for an SKF (Japan) cone at NAPA. The downside is that he sources his bearings overseas (I read China here). His part is cutting and bonding the seals to the bearing. At 4 units per jeep that 125 vehicles. Is there any interest in pooling some money and getting these made? I have copied the cart bearing pic from the website and will post it as soon as I figure how to do that. Thank you for your consideration. AM

 

I hope this works...

 

I see no reason to fix/improve on something that's not broken....

 

I agree that the rubber wiper and felt seal is problematic. The knuckles on my 27a are scored from po allowing the upper king pin bearing to grenade. There is a groove in the knuckle 1/8 inch deep. The wiper/felt seal will not hold the lubricant in the knuckle. If you had a sealed and greased king pin bearings and a sealed and greased spicer u joint living in the hub, then you would not have to pump the knuckle full of grease and oil and hope your bearings get some lube before it all leaks out on the floor.

 

What about the spindle bushing the outer axle rides in? How will that be lubed?

 

I think the reason why the kingpin bearings fail is because the top one doesn't get lubed. I never had any knuckle puddin leak out of any of my jeeps.

 

Nick. I think a coating of good Quality grease where the axle rides in the bushing would be sufficient. The only time I have ever had lube migrate past the spindle bushing was when the carrier seal failed and I had repeated cases of grease brake. I agree the top king pin bearing dies from starvation. The bottom king pin bearing dies from the grit and sand that work their way past the wiper and felt seal on the knuckle. A sealed king pin bearing would reduce both causes of failure. I believe that is the reasom the go cart people developed this idea. Some carts run in dirty environments, kinda like our jeeps.

Gnome. I am jealous of your good fortune in axles. My27a 's spherical ends are heavily pitted by aforementioned sand and grit contamination. In addition, there is a 1/8 inch deep groove worn on the sphere (in the straight ahead position) from the period when the contact between the hub and the sphere did the job of the dry, disintgrated king pin bearings. I have searched for fixes for the ruined sealing surface and doubt my ability to create a sphere out of JB weld or to duplicate the result obtained by filing it down.

 

thats some cool outa the box thinkin my friend

 

I like the idea and thought behind this but a little smear of grease is going to get squished out of the spindle bushing in short order if used in 4 wheel drive mode. You'd need to figure out some way to retain the grease in this area. Open knuckle units use a Torrington bearing with a seal and are packed with grease. Something like this would have to be done.


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What would you suggest? Mill the bushing and install agrease seal?

 

You can tig weld the score marks on the knuckle and not hurt the knuckle itself, and if you know someone who has a cold welder you can have that done and the knuckle will never make it more than 2* above room temp. While the bearing idea is ok, its a lot of added cost for no real reason.

 

P atrick, I found those pcx when I was searching. I tip my hat to your Dad. That is some impressive work. I don't think I can fix my leak problem with a file or stone without doing something like what Mcruff said first. Mcruff, What I am proposing should not ccost much more or even less than the factory set up. You could still run grease in the knuckle if you have the same concerns as Nick and don't have the leak issue I have. The sealed kingpin bearing is priced at 4x cheaper than the one I just bought from NAPA. The sealed spicer u joints don't cost any or much more than the open zerk stockers. The sealed bearing should extend service life of the bearing and extend service intervals as I am sure we all disassemble those knuckles twice a year as per service recommendation.

 

I am sure we all disassemble those knuckles twice a year as per service recommendation.[/QUOTE]

ow that made my sides hurt

 

My point exactly. Trying to improve the moustrap here.

 

I suggest you find a solution to all the issues, not just one or two. I was only pointing out something that obviously had not been thought about. If this can be overcome I think you may have something here. If not, then you will have ruined spindles, outer axle shafts, and locking hubs.



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Nick, I truly appreciate your feedback and critique. I did not think the spindle bushing would be an issue but I don't think I have pushed the envelope on these axles as much as you have . I have never had one lock up or gald due to lack of lube. When I repaired the knuckles on my jeep, the bearings fell out of the cone on the king pins. The spicer u joints were shot and inner shaft wallowed onto the carrier seal such that the sealing surface was scored and I had repeated grease brake. The remnants of rhe knuckle grease has the texture of handcleaner with pumice. The brass spindle bushings and spindle shafts were shiny and smooth. I am truly interested in how you would suggest to retain lube in the spindle bushing. I have never worked on that newfangled D30 tech.

 

I suppose the spindle bushing could be machined to accept a sealed ball bearing....bearing or Teflon? sleeve as there is no axial load, but then the criticisms about cost and complexity become much more valid. One of our machinist members such as Mcruff might have some insight here.