Well I took my truck in to 4 wheel parts to get 4:10 gears, auburn LS Diff and an add a leaf. They called me up to tell me my rear axle seals were leaking and needed to be replaced,which I already knew, and I should replace the bearings also. I figured go ahead. Then they call me back and tell me the passenger side bearing slips into the housing and is loose enough to spin and the proper fix is to get a new housing $980 from Ford plus all the labor to switch everything. He offered a temp. fix, which I opted for, and welded four beads around the bearing to attach it to the housing. The truck is supposed to be ready tomorrow. Anyone have experience with this or advice?

 

Sounds to me like he isn't using the right size bearing.

 

He said the other side was real tight and needed to be hammered in. I saw the old bearing and it had a pretty good scar on the outside where he said it moved and probably got lodged in.

 

Never heard of the happening before on these trucks, did he have a hard time pulling the bearing out? The 4 beads of weld won't stop oil from getting around the outside of it

 

It's supposed to be snug, not super tight. If he really hammered that bearing in I'd prepare to be replacing it again not too far down the road. I would get the part numbers from him and do some research on my own. Something's just not right about it.

 

I had it happen to me on a Class C Motor Home (Ford Chassis) quite a few years ago. Won't go into the complexities of why it happened but in trying to figure how to tighten up those few thousandths that were worn, I decided to plug the hole so that no sand could get into the rear end (NOT good!), and sand blasted the inside of the housing where the bearing rides. I think it's called Silica 30 (not certain), but it's course enough that it put a sand blasted finish that tightened the hole perfectly! The bearing fit nice and snug on both sides. It only takes a very few thousandths for the bearing to fit loose, maybe 2 or 3 thousandths, 4 at the most. If you have any concern, use a Med. temp Lock-Tite. If you have to get the bearing out later (may very well have to if you have the truck long enough), just heat the outside of the housing up a little, it should come right out with a bearing puller. I wouldn't think of replacing the housing for that. You DO NOT want the bearing to spin in the housing (which sounds like what it did) because it would destroy the housing, bearing and axle. It definitely shouldn't they way I described.

 

You don't have to stop the oil from coming around the outside of the bearing NECESSARILY. The seal is on the outside of the bearing and should stop the oil, wherever it comes from. The bearing is lubed by the flow of oil whenever you go around a corner. If you drove STRAIGHT from here to NY and never made a turn of any kind, the bearing MIGHT NOT make it that far, just on the oil that was on the bearing when you started. I still don't understand the 4 beads of weld though. They couldn't have been on the outside of the bearing race, you shouldn't have to take up more than a few thousandths AT MOST, and couldn't get it back into the housing if the weld was any thicker than that.

EDIT: went back and re-read the post and it looks like they welded the bearing into the housing (maybe you would call it tacked). That's not the way I would have done it at all.

 

This is why sometimes I leave well enough alone, nothin wrong w the oringinal bearings I'm sure

 

Well I got my truck back this morning and eveything seems to be working real well. Hope it lasts a while, we'll see.