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BY
Will Wills
I’ve
always felt my Bronco II has led sort of a charmed life.
No matter what I do to it, or how often, it always seems to start
at the first twist of the key; lurch happily down the road as I scull
through the gears and cheerfully endure the bumps and bruises of it’s
weekend life of chores and recreation. So imagine my surprise when I
have a tire off for something or another and find the drivers-side wheel
bearing loose; the locknut still tight as a greedy clam.
So
I decide a ten degree wheel bearing wobble is probably sort of unsafe
and pull the thing apart. I
don’t have much hope it’s just loose, but maybe I can get it snug
enough to make the Snowball run with it.
No damn fear: I’m sitting there with a handful of rust-corroded
rollers and the outer cone in my hand thinking maybe, just maybe, I
should have inspected it after my umpteenth jaunty splash through the
creek. So chalk me up for a
new disk/hub, wheel bearing set and inner seal. That should do it,
right?
I
reflectively began to clean parts, thinking, yes, it has been a while
since I’ve really inspected this truck.
I mean, only three weeks ago (or was it four, five or six?) I put
the airbags in the front springs to support my plow and it seemed fine.
I mean to say; no obvious signs of disgruntlement with its situation.
But then I plowed snow and graded my driveway several times since then,
didn’t I. Yes but
wouldn’t that have effected the axle shafts and things more than the
wheel bearings, I ask? No, I
respond, jiggling the stub shaft with the rag I’m holding, it would
have… Hell! That’s more than just a little of the old missing
lockout looseness. That’s axial play.
The spindle bearing is wasted!
So
I pull off the spindle and look in. No seal: it disintegrated. And there
are no needle bearings in there. They
are gone like last Thanksgivings pumpkin pie. Vanished.
All that remains is a thin film of bearing case that it takes me
an hour to peel out of there. Add
a spindle bearing and an inner seal to the list.
Now
fear begins to creep in here. I mean to say, does a spindle bearing ever
die alone? Or does it shoot the hostages on it’s
way out? I reach shakily for
the lock-out and look inside. It
looks bad. A fine metal powder coats its innards. But it works, right?
Well, sort of. It’s been
in the LOCK position since Admiral Nimitz was a plebe getting wedgies at
Annapolis
. Or is it the Army guys at West Point they call plebes? Whatever the
case, the knob is frozen in LOCK. I’m
pretty sure it’s no good as a bushing for the axle anymore so I chunk
it into my toolbox as an emergency spare and add “WARN #37781” to my
growing list.
Now
I’m pretty hardened to whatever else might be lurking in the dark
recesses of my front axle. With
stoic indifference I pull out the axle and sure enough, the joint is
rattling around like a maraca. I add a Spicer #5-760X to my list.
Then, remembering I may need spares since I’m trying out some
35” tires this trip, I add a few more joints so I can build up a few
spare shafts. That done, I
shuffle dejectedly around to the other side of the truck and begin
pulling it apart.
Surprisingly,
it’s all fine--almost. The grease is a nice bright red through and
through and the joints are smooth and solid.
But the upper ball joint bangs in and out with about 1/2" of
total play. Wasted. But
there’s a limit to what I am willing to do to take this truck out and
decide that it’s going to have to take a few Motrin and call me in the
morning. Bad hip or not, the
old girl is going to Wellsville and it had just better get used to the
pain. I slap the passenger
side together and skip off to find some parts.
In
the aftermath of the Snowball, I think the magic feeling is back.
I mean, the ball joint totally failed and the tire looks like an
old wagon wheel leaning against a tree. But the axles all survived a
full day of full-throttle fun against the 35” ‘hawgs.
All the pretty spare shafts I built up can go back on the shelf
until April. And when I get
around to renting a pressure washer, I’ll see if my truck is somewhere
inside that geological mound still sitting on the trailer.
I guess my only real complaint about the affair is that the
squeaky wheel never squeaked. ~TRS
 
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