Mechanical SOS - dodge D44 front hub problem

Hi Guys,
My friend (who has spent more than a couple days under my bronco with me) is in a tough spot and Im trying to figure out some ideas to help him. He is rebuilding his driver side front hub on his 1985 Dodge with a D44 solid front axle. The Dodge guys arent as lucky as we are with used parts availability. one of his bearing cups in his hub has always had a metal shim around it. In other words, the bore in the hub itself is ~ 0.020" greater in diameter than it should be and the bearing cup just drops in. a previous owner (or maybe even the factory?) overcame this issue by cutting a strip of shim stock the length of the circumference of the bore and the height of the bearing cup, and ~ 0.010" in thickness. somehow, they managed to press the bearing cup in without crushing the shim stock. He has been tinkering for a few days and is at the point of giving up and paying $215-270 + shipping for a used hub because the local yards are very sparse for dodge 4x4s.

His failure mode is that the shim stock always ends up crushed and deformed under the cup. he has tried with a punch as well as his hydraulic press. here is the typical result.



I have a few ideas for how to accomplish this
- smooth the ridges and ruffles at the top and bottom of the shim stock. they are from the tool he used to cut it out. we will try either cutting it out with a dremel, or dressing that edge.
-heat the hub in the oven before attempting? perhaps 350F? how hot is too hot?

do you guys have any ideas for how to make this hub work? Thanks!

0.020" seems huge wear for a spun bearing.  The housing bore is that dimension consistently???

Have either of you tried finding a SpeediSleeve that fits the bearing OD?
These are used to cover damaged shafts where a seal has worn a groove. (common issue with crankshaft front and rear main seal). I think they are 0.011" thick.

Most bearing manufacturers will have their own brand. SpeediSleeve is SKF but Timken, National, whatever...

That, and Loctite stud & bearing mount or their retaining compound for bigger gaps.

Edit: what is the bearing OD?

Jim,
Thanks for the help. I havent seen the part in person, but he doesnt seem to think its spun. its not clear to him how exactly this condition arose. I havent had a chance to examine it. all I really know is that it worked as previously assembled. I wasnt familiar with speedy sleeve, Ill do some googling. the idea of machining the hub out to a greater diameter then pressing in a thicker insert to get back to the correct diameter did occur to us. I dont know the bearing OD or part number, my buddy may have that info on hand. Ill ask.

2.891" is the cup OD

I'm not suggesting machine work. I'd imagine that would cost as much (or more) than a replacement hub.

But these sleeves are meant to fit the OD of a shaft, or perhaps a bearing in this case?
I'm not sure the cost for a diameter as big as the picture seems.
The one that fits my harmonic balancer is around $15.

Ok! Ill do some googling to see if such a thing is readily available at modest cost. I can get his hub to a lathe for free, minus needing to go to the north side of Atlanta (we are on the southside), but we would also like to avoid machine work if possible. thanks for all of your help!

That's an odd diameter for a bearing.  Most are metric, but 2.891" = 73.4314mm

74mm OD would be almost perfect at 2.913" just a couple of thousandths over 2.891 +  0.020.

So, maybe a bearing race with a 74mm OD or maybe a sleeve for a 73mm shaft?

I'm not sure what if anything is available, but you might try a local bearing house (distributor) they could probably offer good advice if they had the parts in hand to measure up.

interesting to note that 2-57/64" (2.8906") is very near the 2.891" value. then again, in 64ths youre never very far away. and its still odd, even in standard notation. I looked at a few of the shaft sleeve manufacturers as well as digging around on mcmaster, nothing the right size has come up yet. I did check mcmaster for 73mm shaft sleeves, and will continue that search elsewhere. it seems that 70 and 75 mm are more common. this has been great food for thought, and at a minimum Ill have a better understanding of these types of options in the future.

A sad update - we tried heating the hub to 400 and chilling the cup in the freezer as well as carefully deburing the shim stock. All we got was burnt fingers. I had really hoped that would work.

Oh man, that's a drag.

I looked up the Timken LM501310 outer race and its 48510 mating cone and bearing.

If I were at a counter with a paper catalogue I would see which other cups would pair up with LM48510.
But all I've got is my phone, and Timken's catalog is a 760 page 10mb PDF to download....  

Like I said check the counter at a local bearing house.
Some of those guys live to dig out the oddball part.  (I Love geeks!)

As for a 73mm sleeve, it's SKF 99287. 19.8mm wide, so it covers the 19.558 width of the race even after you ground the lip off of it.
BUT!  It's $60... There's one on eBay    https://www.ebay.com/p/1940924703
You'd have to torch it to expand it from 2.879 and get it over the race but it would shrink on tight.

Have you checked the bore size of the opposite hub?
Can you figure out what happened to this side?

If the hub is steel and not cast iron perhaps you could knurl or dimple the race seat enough to get it tight?
Then you could glue the race in with Loctite 680 or something.

Jim,
At this point I think he is burned out on trying to make the standard bearing cup fit. We will pursue the option of trying to find a larger od bearing cup with the same mating cone and bearing. The bearing itself is probably reasonably inexpensive so long as we can do what is necessary to install it.

This would all be much easier if he was planning to keep the axle long term becasue a $300 hub is a lifetime part. In reality he is hoping to swap both axles for D60s in the near future.

Thanks again for all of your help!

Oh, believe me! I understand the frustration.  😖

Trying to grasp what some previous owner was thinking when they bored out the hub and installed a shim is even more baffling!

I've got no idea if there even is a larger OD race. But it seems worth a shot (short of spending $300 on a hub for an axle he doesn't want)

Hi. Check housing bore.
Check OD bearing again.
Search for Tolerance Ring.
Greetings Stein.

Bearing OD is a given from the application ('85 Dodge 4 x 4 outer wheel bearing) part number.

Something is up with the spindle bore, and I wonder if it isn't from some other D44 and just cobbled on to this axle?
There were D44 solid front axles produced for all three of the big US auto makers at one point or another.
(The lug pattern would have to be common though)


https://www.mcmaster.com/tolerance-rings/for-bearing-width~19mm/for-minimum-bearing-housing-bore-diameter~73-91mm/

Back in the 80's before you could buy hubs in the aftermarket. When a race spun and was loose we would take hub and a new race to the machine shop and they would braze up the surface and turn it to fit the new race. Not sure you can get anyone now-a -days to do it. With liability and all.

Bruce and Stein,
Thanks for the recommendations. We took a look at those parts Stein/Jim. we may attempt that next. my friend is going junk yard hunting for a hub this weekend, if he doesnt find anything we will need to revisit repair strategies.

OK Guys -
my Buddy lucked out and found a dodge d44 front axle in the right date range in a JY near town, so we picked that up a few days ago and got it onto his bench. we assumed his truck would be rolling down the road within 48 hours given that he now has 2 hubs to pick from. his factory axle (the one in the truck) has auto hubs. the JY axle has manual lockout hubs that look ford/warn style but dont say ford, or warn on them.

Jim, Ive heard you talk about retrofitting ford style lockouts on to dodge axles before so Im hoping you might know whats going on here..



I havent seen this in person yet, but he says that the snap ring holding the lockout into the hub doesnt have any tabs or holes for his snap ring pliers. he says its like someone took a snap ring intended for the OD of a shaft and used it on the ID of his hub  I hope He is just missing something here because I have no idea how we will get that snap ring out otherwise. Im hoping there is just something we dont know about how it works.

never mind guys -
he is right that there is a snap ring in tere with no provisions for snap ring pliers, but you just peel that snap ring out with a pick. youtube is full of relevant videos. Sorry about that!