4x4 Front Axle Service Write-Ups

[Zion]

For a 1984 F250, 6.9L 4X4;

I sent my front ball joints into the great beyond earlier this year, hubs blew their grease seals a while ago, and my rotors look like vinyl records. I finally have the time to start working on it, but I'm not too sure what all should be replaced. I've seen a few video instructionals, though they were all on solid front axles. From what I gather, I need u-joints, hub/wheel bearings, and I've heard mention of some kind of oil seal. I already have the ball joints, brake pads, and the rotors. I figure I'll just tear it apart and make a million stops at NAPA to ID/get all the parts I need, but I'd appreciate any tips or suggestions on things I should also change while I have the axles pulled.

 

[IDIBRONCO]

If you don't use the 4X4 very often and the u joints feel good, I wouldn't replace them. That's just me and you can do what you want to. I rarely ever lock in my hubs. The oil seals are in/on the sides of the differential. Although you can cheat while taking the hubs off, you will need a special socket to tighten the retaining nuts back up when you put it all back together. I've had good luck taking a nut into NAPA and having them match it up to a socket. It helps if you can tell them what front end you have. If you're not sure, take a grease seal in with you as well. The Dana 44HD and the Dana 50 use different sized grease seals with the Dana 50 using a larger diameter one. If you're going this far into it, you may want to consider replacing the brake calipers and the rubber brake hoses that attach to the calipers unless the hoses look fairly new. Again, it's your truck and your money, but there won't be ab easier time to replace those since you'll already have everything apart.

 

[franklin2]

Once you get into it, you will figure out you only want to do this job once. Unless it looks perfect, I would replace it.

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[franklin2]

1175 is the grease seal for the bearings in the rotor.

3123 is a needle bearing to support the axle, 3B470 is a rubber dust seal to keep dirt and water from entering the back of the spindle/axle area

 

[ROCK HARVEY]

Being an 84 do you have the Dana 44hd axle? I did my brakes, hub bearings+seals, and axle u-joints fairly recently. For the stuff at the hub, it’s pretty much identical to a regular Dana 44 which has several good video guides on YouTube. Here’s the best one (2-part video)I found for the hub stuff:

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I didn’t do any diff seals or ball joints. I didn’t want to get too deep because I’m 50/50 on keeping this axle vs doing a Dana 60 swap.

 

[franklin2]

Regular cab f250's came standard with the dana 44hd. There are a few that were special ordered with the dana 50. You can tell what it originally came with by the front axle rating on the tag in the door jamb. I think the dana44hd is around 3850lbs and the dana 50 is 4400lbs.

All extended cab f250's came with the dana 50. All f350's came with the dana 50ttb until 1985.5 when they started putting the dana 60 in the front of the f350's.