I Wonder Why My Wheel Seal Blew?

Or the old locking nut and tang that bends over to secure it. Lots of hubs been removed and installed with a hammer/chisel lol. I found out yesterday my drives have 2 separate locking nuts‍♂️. One has the detent tabs the socket pushes down, the other is the orange ring with teeth on it.

 

Funny you mention that. I was talking to a hack loser wrench the other day and he actually complained about the cotter pin on steer axles. Ironically, that same loser failed to tighten one of my steer axle nuts a couple years ago and guess what? He also failed to put a cotter back in!

 

I've found it's the only thing that keeps me sane anymore.

 

This is the sort of thing that enters my mind and motivates me when I'd really rather not be out working on my trucks.

 

No doubt. It was the ultimate motivator for me as well when I was doing this job too. He walked up to me and was asking questions when I was about half way through it. Probably wondering why I didn't bring to him to do in the first place.

The only reason I found the loose wheel on the steer axle was because I took it to get an alignment a couple days after Hack Loser Wrench did the job and that shop called me out to the bay to have me take a look at it.

He said, "you see anything missing here?" I mentioned the cotter pin not being present. Then he turned the nut off by hand! He caught it because, like a good shop is supposed to do, he checked for any play on each end of the axle before starting the alignment process.

Sometimes we get busy. Sometimes we get lazy. And sometimes we just need a break or have time constraints so we take our equipment to have someone we trust to handle the job. The problem is they rarely do a good job anymore and there's never any real consequences for these people when they fail at doing their job properly.

Getting it done right is my sole motivator now. I'm fully embracing my inner control freak nature!

 

Something caught my eye, maybe someone in here can answer my question. My truck runs the regular old SKF #47697. When I replaced the one yesterday, I got everything seated and nut in place, turning the hub while watching the seal I noticed the inside rubber portion of the seal was stationary like not turning with he metal part of the seal that’s driven into the hub. Is that normal? Or did I F up? Never paid any attention before.

 

The only experience i’ve had with a missing cotter pin or one that was failed to put in was on a school friends uncles ‘68 GTO convertible. He framed up it in ‘87 when we were in highschool and had only been driving it a couple of days. We were coming down the road on the school bus when we saw his uncle and dad standing next to the car that was in the middle of the intersection at a stop sign. Bottom balljoint nut came loose after a few miles of turns and the coil spring popped out and wheel and tire took out fender. Those two guys drank a lot of beer after work and on weekends while doing that project. Lol!

 

If its a one piece seal the rubber should not turn at all. Two piece seals will. When first installed and tight I’ve seen it happen both ways from time to time were rubber rotates and metal doesn’t or the metal will rotate and the rubber stays put. As long as it doesn’t leak it should be ok. Seals will loosen up a bit and may rotate like designed to do in no time at all.

 

Ok so normal for my particular seal to not rotate then? That makes me feel a lot better lol

 

It's crazy isn't it? The amount of turning and the subsequent inevitable friction caused by the seal turning in itself without failing is amazing to me.