I'm going through the front-end of my 1998 TJ Sport (D30F, D44R) and figure I may as well post my tribulations; getting this stuff documented, in as much detail as I can remember, may help someone (even myself!) in the future.
This all started with my
1998 TJ track bar removal - JeepForum.com thread.
At this point I've had the tires Road Force balanced, and the wobble/shimmy is gone. There's still some vibration, some of it may be due to inherent tire vibration (31" BFG A/T KO) but I've got 138K miles at this point so I want to make sure I don't have any worn parts in the front-end. I've also been very neglectful of greasing all the fittings over the years so I figure it's high time I start taking better care of my Jeep.
So, next I used a pry-bar jammed into various places in the front end and tried to move the ball joints and u-joints by hand. Everything seemed tight, except for the front passenger side axle U-joint. There was a little (about 1/8") movement in it. Also, when I greased the steering knuckle joints where they meet the tie rod and drag link, the grease boots (which were pretty dried up) burst. Great, so now I'm
spitting grease right at my brake rotors.
I already have a box of
Energy Suspension 9.13101R boots that I never installed (except for 1), so I plan to install 2 of these (1 at each end) and get them pumped up.
I remove the wheels and brake calipers.
Note: while removing the wheels the last several times, I've noticed that the wheel studs (the bolts on the hub where you screw down the lug nuts) seemed to be getting
worn to the point where it was difficult getting some of the lug nuts/wheel nuts on. I always thought that these studs were integral with the hub assembly; when I pulled the wheels this time, some of the threads got mangled quite severely, and I couldn't get nuts back on anymore. I went out and purchased
SAE / Metric Tap and Die Set - 60 Piece, Alloy Steel at Harbor Freight. Once I got home I searched online for some tips on rethreading. That's when I came across:
How to Replace Lug Nut Studs : Removing a Broken Lug Nut Stud - YouTube and discovered that these studs were
individually replaceable. What a relief! I'm not sure yet if I'll keep the tap and die kit, or return it... I may never have a need for it, but it's one of those things that I feel I might find random uses for in the future. I'm open to suggestions here.
I found that Advance Auto had replacement wheel studs for $1.99: Dorman part #
98169.1. (The D44 rear studs are part # 97000.1, I picked up a couple of those as well for later.)
I tried pressing the old studs out with a cheap C-clamp and a socket but I couldn't get a good hold on the ends of the stud, so I got frustrated and ended up just resorting to the hammer method as shown in the video.
2-3 whacks with a framing hammer, and the stud was gone; repeated for another stud.
To get the new studs installed, I basically used the method shown here:
How to Replace Lug Nut Studs : Preparing a New Lug Nut Stud Surface - YouTube . I bought a giant hex nut at Ace Hardware and used that as
a spacer, and a regular hex nut and washer as a puller. (Wheel stud specs are: 1/2"-20, btw.)
This worked great, except after doing the first one I found that the threads on the giant hex nut (because it was difficult to perfectly center around the stud) slightly chewed on the brand new wheel stud's threads. For the next stud, I just used an
oversize washer (5/8" i.d. fender washer I think) as the spacer, with a 1/2" i.d. fender washer on top of that. This actually worked VERY well, no thread damage. If I had to do it again I'd probably go with 2 of the 5/8" washers to provide a little more clearance depth for the shoulder of the stud to pull through.
I also bought 10 new wheel nuts at Advance Auto, made by Dorman, I'll post the part # later (TODO). They were $2.50/ea. So now I have no issues getting the nuts threaded back onto the hubs.
While I was doing all this, btw, I noticed a
Rotational stiffness in front left wheel - JeepForum.com; i.e., a binding when turning the driver's side hub which I'll address later (I haven't resolved this yet).
So, after all that, I finally got to pulling the tie rod to replace the boot. I got it loose with a lot of
PB Blaster, a 3/4" socket, and a 25" breaker bar. I left a few threads on the stud so it wouldn't drop to the ground, and tried pulling it out with a 2-jaw puller. The puller kept slipping off though, so I used a
3/4" Forged Ball Point Joint Separator I got at Harbor Freight. After a bunch of cranking there was a huge explosion and the sound of a bunch of small pieces hitting the ground; fortunately it was just bits of rust and crud -- the tool was intact and the joint had been separated. Next I crammed a pry bar through the axle yoke to suspend the TRE while I cleaned it up:
I removed the old boot/seal by grabbing around the circumference with a large pair of pliers, and twisting and turning. Then I pumped some clean grease through it, wiped it down, put the new boot on, and reinstalled it (
35 ft-lbs). This was after wire-brushing the scale off of the flange that it mounts through. I also used a
new castle nut (a.k.a. "slotted nut") and cotter pin from Ace Hardware, as the old ones were rotted.
Speaking of the cotter pin, I also had a hard time getting these out since they were so rusted. I ended up
clipping the "loop" end with a pair of side cutters, and pulled the individual segments of the straight pieces backwards through the stud with a pair of pliers.
On to the passenger side: still haven't been able to get that nut loose, and couldn't get the whole cotter pin out. It's all rusted together SEVERELY. Still working on that one. The castle nut corners are rounded off at this point. I tried using a
1/2" Drive Stud Extractor but so far all this has done is chew into the nut.
My next step will be to use a hacksaw to cut vertically (against the edge of, and parallel to, the side of the stud) through the nut and see if I can just chop it off, hopefully without damaging the stud threads. I haven't been able to get a nut splitter anywhere (all the local stores are out, and HFT discontinued theirs) so I'm not sure what else to try at this point.
More to come....
