Dana 50 balljoints... and a whole lot more.

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ghunt

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Geez, you make this job sound so difficult LOL

Actually, it is- but honestly I'm wondering why you had so much trouble with the spindles and ball joints. My truck is a lot rustier than yours, but the spindles came right off courtesy of a jack and few good whacks at the side of the knuckle. Similarly, the ball joints let go after just a handful of good whacks on a pickle fork with a 3 lb sledge.

Maybe I'm lucky :dunno The job did end up taking 2 days though because I didn't have all the correct tools when I started.

Also I wanted to do what you did- drop the carrier, to change that inner u-joint and change the gear oil, buuuut...couldn't break loose those two outer bolts on the carrier and ran out of time. Ah well maybe later on since I have pondered swapping to 3.55's at some point.
 

TLBREWER

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Excellent write-up and pictures! I feel your pain. I just finished installing a 4" lift on my wife's truck. In the process I found the same things you did. All ball joints, u-joints, tie rod ends drag link, and power steering box needed replaced. I was lucky and the inner u-joint showed no signs of wear so I left it alone. I'll probably pay for that later, but I figured if I have to re-gear it after adding the 35" tires, I can do it then. Plus this was a rather extensive project due to some other issues going on at the time. Luckily, my D50 has pull out axles so that was a breeze. I also used all spicer components, but I have a good friend at Napa so I got them at cost. I also cleaned everything up and painted it as I went.

One thing I learned. I am woefully under-tooled when it comes to heavy maintenance. Luckily my neighbor is a heavy mechanic and his 1200lb impact wrench and air chisel got quite a workout. Twenty years of rust and corrosion. You couldn't even identify the camber bushings (which were replaced when it went in for alignment) I still wouldn't be done if it weren't for heavy duty air tools!

But now it is all shiny and new. I can get it all apart rather quickly now and it should be good for the remainder of the trucks life. Now it drives like new or better with the aftermarket springs. As a matter of fact, the tech that test drove it after the alignment commented that it was the best driving old Ford he had ever driven.;Sweet

Tom
 

BrandonMag

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I'm wondering why you had so much trouble with the spindles and ball joints. My truck is a lot rustier than yours, but the spindles came right off courtesy of a jack and few good whacks at the side of the knuckle. Similarly, the ball joints let go after just a handful of good whacks on a pickle fork with a 3 lb sledge.

When I bought this truck I was impressed with its lack of rust for such an old truck... Now that I've worked on it for over a year, I realize that somehow there's very little rust on the body but the drivetrain was siezed up like a ****! I replaced the u-joints in my drivelines a couple of months ago and had a hell of a time getting them out. In fact, the slip yoke on my rear driveline was siezed up so bad I ended having to take it to a driveline shop in Portland and having it rebuilt.

At this point I've replaced all eight u-joints, four balljoints and three tie-rod ends plus the drag link... hopefully that'll do for drivetrain maintenance for the forseeable future.

One thing I learned. I am woefully under-tooled when it comes to heavy maintenance.

Yep, that's the same thing I've now learned (in spades). If I end up acquiring a collection of 4X4 old Fords (like some members have), I'm going to be expanding my heavy-tool collection. At this point though, I'm going to have to be satisfied with what I've got.

Would have been a great time to install a drain plug on that D50.

You know I actually thought about that, but decided against it since I was running out of time (this job ended up taking nine days :eek:). I used fully synthetic Chevron 75W-90 gear oil and the recommended change interval is 100K miles, so I should be good for awhile.

Any idea what the part number was for that O'reilly's tool for the front hub nuts?

Sorry, no.


ARRRGGHH!!! What are the odds? If that had been available about three weeks ago, this would have been a thread about my adventure swapping in a Dana 60. (smacks forehead)
 
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Optikalillushun

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Not that most guys do these a lot but since we get a lot of this stuff, a cheap slide hammer and spindle tool makes spindle removal a breeze. Also, the RTV on the 3rd member housing is factory, at least every TTB i tore into had the same orange smutz as a seal.

+1 on the anti-sieze. I put that on my dana 44 in my 93 F-150 when i SAS'd it and just last week i had to change the ball joints on the pass side. Tapped the caliper bracket a few times and it slide right off.
 

IDIDieselJohn

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Great write up! I assume it's pretty much the same deal for the Dana 44HD?

As I will fully rebuilt mine in my F250 as part of restoring the truck.
 

Goofyexponent

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I got a spindle adapter with my wheel bearing service kit....cost me $100 though. All I need now is to buy/make a slide hammer.

I can't remember what brand my wheel bearing sockets are, but I have all sockets for the Dana axles, sterling 10.25 and a couple others as well as the spindle adapter.
 

stantheman68

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Dana50 TTB Spindle Removal (drivers side): I banged away for an hour to no avail. Then I rented the Autozone Spindle Puller (27104) and slide hammer (27033) and had it off within a minuted. Do yourself a favor and do the same
 

justinray

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Just a heads up to anyone doing this, to get the Spindle off, I found it's much easier to just put wedges between the spindle and the dust cover (on the outboard side) and give it a couple good hots, took me 2 hits on either side, done.
 

93idisv2007

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i just finished rebilding my whole front end on my 93 dana 50. total cost racked up to be 1300 and that was putting a set of used f350 springs under it. the whole ordeal took me and my dad a good 20 hours over a weekend to do. i used a chisel on the back of the spindle with a heavy ball pen hammer and it only took maybe 20 min per side and we have always just used a hammer and screw driver for the spindle nuts :/ i know not good but we have poor man ways, but our biggest problem was the bushings in the springs and the 4 spring bolts rusted into place i spent almost 4 hours on it before we cut them off and went and hunted some bolts to replace them (would of just cut them sooner but we were doing this at midnight no parts stores open :( ) but all in all not too awful hard if i had to do it again one good day and it could be done.
 

bbjordan

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Glad you got it done. Good write up! I am looking at doing the same thing on my D50. I will not have the time pressures because I have another D50 from another vehicle that I will rebuild and then just swap out. Thanks again for the write up. Its nice to know what I'm up against. :)
 

Goofyexponent

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I just did an axle joint in the pickup yesterday. I used the old hammer and block of wood to remove my spindles last time, but this time I used my slide hammer and spindle adapter. WOW..two smacks from the slide hammer and I had it off. WAY easier with a slide hammer!!!
 

Agnem

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Yup. Tech article worthy to be sure. Off it goes....
 
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