Tag hub assembly

Howdy folks, Ed here. Welcome back to Bullnose Garage for part three of the Bullnose brake job special. Today, hopefully, we’ll be wrapping up with the front brakes. So, I’ve got new hubs, new rotors—actually, it’s one piece hub and rotor—new calipers, new pads, new wheel bearings, the whole nine yards up here. Should be fun getting dirty, packing these bearings, and getting everything back together. So stay tuned.

Just like in the back of the truck, the first thing we’ve got to do is some disassembly. We’re going to start with the brake caliper since that’s the first piece that has to come off to replace anything here. Now, normally when you take off a brake caliper, you would just remove it and then hang it somewhere so the brake line doesn’t get kinked up. A lot of guys use bungee cords or, you know, wire hangers or something like that. But since I’m gonna actually be replacing the entire caliper, I’ve got to remove the brake line completely. So that’s where we’re going to start. This is a 9/16.

Something to note about disconnecting a caliper from a brake line versus a wheel or brake cylinder from a brake line is that there’s not an easy way to cap this connection. The way this works is that this bolt goes through here, actually goes that way, and there’s a hole in the bolt for the brake line or the brake fluid to go through, and then it comes out the end. So when you remove this, that connection inside of here is just open, and there’s not really a good way to plug it. Now, maybe they make something to do that, I don’t know. I’m not familiar with anything, so I just have a bucket here for all the brake fluid to drip into.

On these Bullnose trucks, the calipers are mounted in a sort of unique way, and I’m not sure what all vehicles this mounting system is used on. It’s the first time actually that I’ve ever seen something like this. But there’s this little assembly down here with actually like a little spring in here that pushes the caliper up into this plate, and there’s a plate up top here, like a groove that the caliper slides into. And so this assembly here actually has a spring that holds it in place with tension. So you have to remove this bolt and then pound out this assembly, and I’m just going to use a regular pin punch for that. Just like with the brake line, this is a 9/16.

And there’s the assembly with the spring. There’s not too much to it, and actually with the calipers that I purchased, I got a new set of these, so I actually don’t need to keep these, so they’re going to go in the garbage. And now the caliper should just come off, rotate out, lift up, and slide off just like that. There’s some brake fluid still in there, and of course the pads slide right out of the caliper. You can toss those. This pad here is actually stuck to the back of the rotor here assembly. There we go, that pad comes out.

Now, these calipers can actually be sent back for a core charge. Usually, when you buy a brand new caliper, you’re usually charged a core charge anywhere from five dollars to maybe fifteen depending on where you buy them. And then if you want that core charge back, you send your old caliper to whoever you purchased your new caliper from. I bought my new calipers from Rock Auto, and the core charge is only like five dollars, so I’m not even sure it’s worth the money to send these back. I’m probably just going to go ahead and pitch them.

Now that the caliper is off, the next job is to remove the rotor and hub assembly, and to do that, I’ve got to get this cap here off the front. There’s a couple of different ways to do this. I’m going to show you what I think is the right way to do it, which is just putting a little screwdriver in here and peeling it off little by little. These caps aren’t terribly expensive, but if you do this right, you can reuse the cap. Now, I bought new ones because my cap on the other side is mangled because whoever did that side didn’t take it off like this. So if I clean this up just a little bit, it’ll be much easier for you to see the bits and pieces inside of here, just a little.

So we’ve got this cotter pin here, which holds on the castle nut here, and then behind that, you’ve got the actual spindle nut itself. So first order of business is to take off the cotter pin. Success! Castle nut, and there’s your actual spindle nut. Now, these actually aren’t typically very tight. As a matter of fact, this one here was just finger tight, just barely. And so there’s a torque spec for these, but it’s really low. It’s like ten foot pounds or something like that. So most of the time, when you’re reading manuals or something, that’ll tell you to snug it up, give it like a quarter turn, rotate everything to make sure everything’s seated, and then turn it back so that you’re not too tight. But we’ll go through that when I do the installation for the new hub.

Now this is all cleaned up and taken apart. This should just come right off. Let’s get our old bearing and washer out of there, and off it comes. So this is the hub and rotor that came out. On the back, you’ve got the rear bearing seal, and since I’m not going to save this seal, I’ve got a new one. I just want to pop this off, and as a matter of fact, to be honest, I’m not going to save this hub and rotor assembly either, so I don’t really care what I do to it. I can get away with this because I don’t care about these bearings. And there we go, our bearing and seal.

So in terms of old parts, we’ve got the old rotor and hub assembly, the old seal, the old inner bearing, and the old outer bearing. But these are all being replaced, so in the garbage they go. Obviously, this is my new hub and rotor assembly. I’ve got it turned upside down so the part that faces the truck is up, and these are my new bearings. Actually, I’ve got, of course, you have two. You have an inner bearing and an outer bearing, and then a new bearing seal. Let me show you this real quick because these rotors are a little bit different than I expected because they come with races already installed. So here’s my Timken bearing, and you can see there’s the actual bearing itself, and then there’s the race that comes with the bearing. But if you look, there’s already a race preset into this hub assembly. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to put this bearing down in here and just verify that it seats in there correctly and I don’t have any issues with it. And it seems to seat and fit very well. So because of that, I’m just going to go ahead and use the race that’s already inside of the hub.

Now, I’ve done a lot of research since I found out that these hubs came with their own races, and I couldn’t find anything definitive that said whether or not I should try to remove these races or if I should just go ahead and use them as they are. Because the argument would be that, well, the Timken race is going to be better quality than that race or that the Timken race and bearing are a matched set and that the bearing won’t work as well on this race as it would work on the Timken race. So here’s my line of thinking: getting these races out of these hubs can be a bit of a chore. You have to have either special tools or know how to weld. If you weld a bead around the outside of the race, when it cools, the race can contract and will sometimes pop off. Trying to beat these out with a screwdriver or a punch or something can be a real pain. You risk damaging the hub itself, maybe mushrooming out the ends and causing some issues. I mean, these things need to be pretty clean and straight or else you’ll get some problems with your wheels, obviously. So I don’t know that I want to chance doing that. I’ve never done that before.

As much as I would love to use the Timken races, I think it’s just going to be too much trouble and potential disaster for me to try to get these races out of these hubs. They’re in there pretty tight. Just to do a test, I took a—let me get it—just to do a test, I took a brass punch and tried to see if I could punch out the outer race of this rotor right here. And you can see that the end of this, if I can get it to focus here, I don’t know if I can. There it goes. Yeah, so you can see that the end of this is pretty well hosed. I mean, it’s brass, so it’s meant to be that way, but that’s what I got trying to pound that race out of this rotor hub assembly. So since I didn’t have any luck trying to get it out, I figure it’s going to be way too much trouble trying to get all four races out of both hub and rotor assemblies, and I’ll just go ahead and use the Timken bearings with the races that came with the rotors.

And here’s the other thing too: if these races came with these rotors and these aren’t necessarily the best rotors out there, they’re Raybestos, which is sort of middle of the line. But if they come like this and they’re installed like this on, you know, thousands and thousands of vehicles all over the country, then you gotta think that these races are probably serviceable. And I’m not gonna be racing my truck or doing anything crazy. If I were, then these would probably be drilled and slotted. As a matter of fact, I’d probably convert this whole thing to be two pieces—the hub and rotor assembly would be separate because you can do that. And then that way, you can go out and get a little bit nicer rotors, drilled, slotted performance rotors. And then I’d probably be upgrading the calipers to double pistons and all this crazy stuff if I were going to be racing the truck, but I’m not.

So if I were worried about all that stuff, then I’d probably go ahead and maybe pound these out. But that’s kind of a moot point because if I were doing all of that, I would make sure to get hubs without races already installed. These hubs are brand new and should be pretty clean, but just to be 100%, I’m gonna hit them with some brake cleaner and a clean rag. The important part is inside these bearing races where the bearings are going to go, just to make sure that there’s nothing in there. This should be a fun experience for me. I’ve never packed bearings before in my life, but that’s the next step. If I want to put this rotor and hub assembly onto my spindle, then I’ve got to pack these bearings with grease.

Now, I’m going to use a bearing packer because, like I said, I’ve never done this before, and I want to make sure that I get the job done right. You can pack bearings using your hands, probably with gloves, by rolling the bearings across your palm and getting all the grease inside of there. But like I said, I’ve never done that before. I am absolutely not an expert, so if I can get a tool that will help me ensure that I’m doing it correctly, that’s what I’m gonna do. So this is actually pretty easy to use. Obviously, it’s never been used before, but take a little plunger out, screw the cone off. You put your bearing in there with, obviously, the taper going in like that. Once you got the bearing in there, screw this back on tight, put all your grease down on the bottom of there, put that in, and push down. And as you compress this, the grease goes up in through those holes right there, out through the holes in there, and goes into all the little nooks and crannies of the bearing, at least in theory. We’ll see how well it really works.

I’m using red and tacky grease for this. All the reviews for this grease are very favorable. It’s got all the right ratings, GCLB and LGI number two. It’s got a really high drop point. Project Farm actually did a video using red and tacky grease. That’s really interesting. So if you haven’t seen Project Farm’s videos, you should go check them out. He’s a really cool dude. So we’re just about ready to get rolling on this. Obviously, the first bearing that I’m going to do my packing on is the inner bearing. That’s the bigger one. And then once the inner bearing is packed and good and gooey, then I can take my bearing seal and pop it on here and then pack my outer bearing, flip this thing around, stick it on the spindle, and get everything put back together.

So there we go. Now that looks to be pretty well packed. All right, now it’s off to the races. Okay, now just a little more right here on top just to make sure it’s good and gooey. I’m not going to have any issues here, and now we can put our seal on. And I’m just gonna make sure that it’s good and even here, and I’m just gonna bang it on with a rubber mallet because I’ve never done this before. I want to make sure to use something like a rubber mallet instead of an actual hammer. It gives me a little more leeway in terms of making mistakes.

All right, so the rear bearing is installed, or the inner bearing I suppose I should say. And now we’ll pack the outer bearing just like that. So I’m just going to take a little bit of grease and put it on the spindle just to make sure that there’s plenty of lubrication here. Now take the hub and rotor assembly that’s already got the rear seal and rear bearing, or inner bearing on it, get it on, and we’ll take my packed outer bearing and get it on. Then we’ll take the spindle washer. Now this is actually the spindle washer that came off the truck. It’s been used, but these don’t really go bad, so you can reuse them. The one that I got with my Dorman kit actually is the wrong one, so I’m gonna reuse the one that goes on the truck.

All right, and now our brand new spindle nut. And you get this on there about as tight as you can by hand, and then you rotate your bearing to make sure it’s seated. And so you can turn this a little more. You want to make sure you don’t get these too tight because if you get them too tight, they’ll put a lot of pressure on your bearings, and they’ll wear out. So as you rotate it around, you notice I can tighten it up even more, right? So I’m going to keep doing this until I can’t hand tighten this anymore, which is right about there. And then I’m going to back off just a little.

The last two parts that I need are my new castle nut and my new cotter pin. So the castle nut just goes over top of this like that, and what you want to do is try to find where this is the right tightness. This nut is the correct tightness so that it doesn’t bind your bearings, but it’s not so loose that it really kind of comes off easy. Yeah, right about there. And find where it lines up good with one of the slots in the castle nut, and then you just drop in your cotter pin and bend it up. There we go.

Okay, now that I’ve got this all assembled, I’m going to load it up a little bit more grease, and I’ll put my cap on. That just goes right on there. It just goes right on there. It just goes right on there. It just goes right on there. It just goes right on there. It might take a little bit of persuading with a rubber mallet. There’s always a bigger hammer.

Okay, so I may have gotten just a little overzealous on the dust cap here. So just to make sure that I wasn’t gonna hurt anything, I went ahead and took it off, which I’ll do now real quick just to check to see if this indentation is going to be too deep. And it turns out that it is. Now, of course, besides the beautiful little China label there, you can see where my cotter pin has been digging into the top of the cap, which means that my dent here is just a little too deep. So this cap is garbage, but that’s okay because I have found a pretty neat trick to get my next cap on here without damaging it.

Now, of course, I bought two, one for each side. I’m gonna use my second cap for this side tonight, and then I’ll pick up another cap at the parts store tomorrow so I can do the other side. So let me show you what I’ve come up with. Here’s my other cap, also made in China, of course. And this is a two-inch piece of PVC, and it just so happens that that cap fits right in there, right along the ridge here. So I’m going to use this piece of PVC to pound this cap in. You get it started first, try to get it centered as much as possible anyway. Feels all right. I will use my PVC and see if I can get it on. Beautiful! Simple trick. It’s the best kind.

Now that the hub and rotor are back on, I’m going to give it one final cleaning before I put the caliper and pads on just to make sure there’s nothing on the braking surface that’s going to trip me up later. Here’s something interesting: these are my brand new brake pads, and they came with this hardware right here, which mounts the caliper to the knuckle. It’s that spring that I removed earlier, and this came with the caliper, so actually I have two sets of this little compression spring, and I don’t need both sets. So because I like the color black, we’re going to use the ones that came with the pads.

The brake shoe kit that I got came with this little clip. Oops! This little clip here, and of course, this is the inner shoe here. So the inner shoe slides into these notches just like that, and the clip is what holds it in. So we turn the clip like this, pop it onto the shoe, and then wedge it in there just like that, and then the caliper goes over top of this. Now that the inner pad is already mounted up, it’s time to put on our caliper. Before we put the caliper in though, we want to make sure we put some brake caliper grease on all the metal parts that are going to be touching each other. So where this pad touches the piston on the caliper, and then where this pad here actually touches the caliper on the other side, you want to make sure that you put some brake caliper grease on that to keep things moving smoothly, keep things quiet.

You also just want to make sure when you’re doing this that you don’t get any brake caliper grease on the actual pads or on the rotor surface itself because that will hurt your braking performance. So I’m going to be greasing the caliper rather than the pads because it’s just easier that way. So we’re just going to put a little bit of grease right around the piston. You don’t need a whole lot, just enough to get it coated. And then this obviously goes this way, but then this mounts on there just like that. So all the places where this contacts, especially in these little grooves and things, I want to make sure I get some grease. All right, there we go. Now I can put my pad on, being careful not to get any grease on the surface of the pad. There we go. And now I should be able to mount my caliper, start from the top here.

So there we go. Sometimes it takes a little bit of persuasion. So now I should be able to put in my holding pin and spring down here in the bottom. You just get it until it lines up with this hole for the bolt, and now we’re ready to put in the bolt. This bolt came with the caliper. It’s already got some thread locker on it. If yours doesn’t, it’s probably a good idea. Here we go, one mounted caliper with brand new brake pads. And now to put on the brake line. Now when you get a new caliper, it should come with a couple of crush washers like these. You want to make sure that you put a crush washer on either side of this block. So I want to put one on this banjo bolt, put one on this banjo bolt here, put it through, and then another. And now we can mount it.

And there we go, one front brake assembly completely replaced. I said before that I feel like there’s a right way and a wrong way to take these caps off. I mean, obviously, there’s a right way or wrong way to put them back on, right? But anyway, so this cap has been taken off what I believe to do the wrong way. If you look, let me get a little bit closer. So there you can see the damage that’s been done to this cap, right? Which allows dust and even maybe liquids and stuff to get inside this little gap there. So you don’t want that. And here is how that happens. Since I’m going to replace this cap anyway, I don’t mind doing it this way to show you what I’m talking about. Taking it off with a pair of channel locks, it works. It absolutely does, but it causes all kinds of damage, and it’s just as easy to use a screwdriver and do it right.

Unlike the other side of the truck, the spindle nut on this side is a little tighter than finger tight, so I’m going to use this 27 millimeter socket to get it off. And that was all it took, just a little bit. These don’t go on very tight. Get the washer and the outer bearing out. Now I’m going to reuse this washer. There’s an interesting thing going on. The replacement kit that I got for this nut, washer, and cotter pin actually has a washer that is different than this one. As a matter of fact, not even the same diameter. Now it looks like it might be able to fit, but when you try to put it on, focus, it’s a little bit tight. Actually, on this side, it’s not too bad. On the other side, it was pretty tight. So since these original washers don’t really get a whole lot of wear on them and they don’t really wear out, I’m just reusing the originals.

So, so, so foreign. Well, that didn’t go as planned. So that means we’re having a part four where I talk about lessons learned and reinstall this brake cable again because this one busted. Talk about this lovely bolt that I sheared off because of this piece of Harbor Freight torque wrench and how I had to replace the master cylinder and the nightmare that I had trying to bleed these brakes. So stay tuned for that. As always, if you have any questions, comments, concerns, gripes, internet ramblings, stick them below. Thanks again for watching, guys, and we will see you next time.