jumper_bob

Hi all;

87 4Runner; PO was a Toyota dealer tech, so truck is pretty sound all around and has been fairly well maintained.

Have been using the truck pretty heavily the last two weeks, up and down to local ski area, quite a bit of 4wd up the Rockies at 35-55 miles per hour.

Several weeks ago, noticed a worsening shake with medium to hard braking. Mostly felt shake in steering wheel and truck body(?) as opposed to in the brake pedal. Went out and bought new pads/rotors cuz I thought that was the problem.

Checked, and current pads are 80% or so, and rotors are very smooth and even (by eyeballing) and no signs of scoring etc. Looked in Haines book, it says one possible cause of brake shudder is wheel bearings.

Other day, as returning to home, heard twice a squealing from front right, as if a wheel bearing were dry (I had an 85 Ford grenade the front hub and wheel fall off, so have heard these kinds of sounds before).

This is my first Toyota, so am reading the book a lot and this forum a lot more as the tech is much more complex than a Ford of the same age LOL!

Have searched the forum and read what seems to be relevant (including the big sticky Tech write up about greasing spindle bushings and fabbing a tool to grease them). Its also been decently cold here which has been noted as making the squealing more frequent in some other thread.

Took the truck on a short drive around the block on icy roads to test the 4wd; it squealed once while in 4wd and again while in 2wd, so I think its not the hubs (probably an obviously obvious thing heh)

Yesterday, pulled the wheels and hubs for the first time; the bearings *look* to have grease in there (at least there is nice clean looking red grease around the spindle nut), but I did not pull the spindle nuts and actually look (dont have the big socket yet). While the hub was off, I stuck a screwdriver in the end of the splined shaft and noticed a tad bit of vertical and horizontal play, which another thread indicated would be play in the bearings (he had a video embedded, I dont remember the URL but the play in mine was not near as bad as his but was the same type of play). It was different from the in-out play associated with the actual axle.

I am guessing that the squealing was a dry-ish spindle bearing, so am going to go fab one of the tools for that and grease and see if it goes away.

I have auto hubs so am looking on ebay/junkyard/etc for some Aisin manuals and will be swapping those on in the near future; so dont want to spend too much time or money right now just to duplicate my labor in a couple of weeks.

Here is the big question I have about the bearings, etc:

Can I simply replace the bearings inside my current hub (rotor???) or do I *have* to have new races pressed in as well? If that is the case, I will just go get some bearings/races and have a shop press them into my new rotors and replace the whole bam-bam at once?

Also, the bearings do have a bit of play, but not an excessive amount, and seem to have grease in them, so I was thinking about just greasing the spindle with the PVC tool Andy87 posted, and hoping that fixes the squeal until I can get the new hubs and THEN pull everything off and replace all at once and get the spindle greased properly.

With the plans to swap on manual hubs, am I correct in guessing that this is probably a spindle grease issue and hopefullly I could be okay to just pull the hub and push some grease in there and wait a week or two for some Aisin manual hubs?

On the other hand, since I bought new rotors, I could just put the new bearings in there, pull everything off, grease mightily, and then the Aisin swap would be halfway complete and a fairly quick job once I get the parts in.

Any thoughts / reactions / things I said that sound retarded? Like I said, this is my first Toy, but have been around 4wd trucks for a bit and know enough that I am a bit scared of driving around with possibly sketchy bearings? (hah in any case the truck isnt going more than five miles from home 'till I get this figured out LOL.)

I am off to get some pieces to make the spindle lube tool, so am gonna take the truck the 0.8 mile to the hardware store and see if it makes more sounds.

Thanks in advance for reading and for any suggestions or thoughts, any and all are greatly appreciated.

Scott

daved5150

iTrader: (1)

Hey Scott,

I have a 1988 4Runner. I had issues with the front spindle bearings making noise when I had the front hubs locked and using four wheel drive that started at the end of winter around Feb./March 2009. Last year in November I made the spindle lube tool and used "Green Grease" that I bought at Advance to lube the spindle bearings. That grease is expensive stuff but it is synthetic and waterproof. By far the most tenacious, thickest grease I have ever seen. Great stuff. Not once did I hear the noise again during this winter. Only time will tell how long it will last.

If I were you, if you're going to replace the bearings you should replace the races as well. And you can do the job yourself with a set of brass punches that you should be able to buy locally. Make sure you completely clean the inside of the hub before you start pounding out the old races. You just have to make sure you get all the brass filings out of the hub before you add grease to the hub and assemble it with the packed bearings.

I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any other questions or need me to post any pictures.

Dave

Jay351

To lube spindle bushings you don't need to make the tool. Yes you can and it might be easier but I have had great success with a grease injector needle.

simply remove the hub the 12mm gold bolt and the CV axle retainer snap ring. Now push the axle stub up a little and shove your needle in all the way. Pump grease in till it starts comming out the front. Remove, index a little down and repeat untill you have gone all the way around the axle stub.

Now push and axle in and using a large screwdriver, wedge it behind the spindle to keep the cv axle pushed out. Now do the same thing from the backside.

Once you're done thread the gold bolt in and using it and a hub stud as a fulcrum pull the cv axle back out to its original position. Install the snap ring and try to wiggle the cv around. There will be no play.

You can use regular grease (wheel bearing is best) but I like to use amsoil synthetic grease

88runnerboi

I have an 88 4runner that I recently swapped the auto hubs to warn manual hubs. When I took the autos off, there was a little play, maybe a 1/8th of an inch on both sides in the axle shafts. I put the spindle nut kit on, and the hubs, and no play. yesterday, I had some random knocking sound from under the truck, so i investigated. while i was trying to find the source, i noticed the axle shafts had play in them again(but was not the source of the rattle). I was wondering if the spindle nuts had just become loose, or if I need new spindle bearings. Im a sophomore in highschool, so I do not have endless cash. ANY help would be appreciated. Thanks