I am rehabbing a Rubicon front axle that has about 40K on it. It does not have unit bearing, brakes, etc. Those are to come off my Dana 30 that has roughly 30K on it.

I'm already replacing the ball joints. My question is, should I go ahead and replace the front bearing/hub assemblies and not re-use the Dana 30 ones? It's only about $100 a piece (Timken - Rock Auto), but I am trying to keep control of the budget to help keep the wife happy. Well, not as aggravated with all the boxes showing up what seems like daily.

 

If the bearings are not rough when you rotate them, and you feel no play in them, go ahead and install them. If they go bad at some later date, they are easy to replace. Put some ant-seize on the area of the hub where it mates to the hole in the knuckle.

"Timken" on the new unit bearing box means nothing these days. You will find all brands of JK unit bearings are made by Iljin, Korea.

 

Antisieze all the things, especially in Ohio. I'd Chandler them while you've already got them out, I think they're $100 a piece??

 

Definitely this ^^^^... anti-seize

 

Chandler? As in Bing?

Seriously, was that an auto correct failure or is that thing?

 

Auto-corrupt all day long. I meant for my fat fingers to say that you should change them while you're already in there. The roll test is good, but not 100% from the few units I've replaced. They felt fine but replacing them resulted in zero noise and they took out the vibes.

 

You beat me to the reply. I had something all made up for what it means to "Chandler them..."