Hi - It's Scott in San Jose. I think you will know the answer to my question. Mine is a 1968 Dodge B body. I noticed the inner seal in the rear end housing then the gasket at the 5 bolt flange. How are the outer axle bearings serviced? Hand pack them like front spindle bearings?
If they are timken cone and roller--------yes
They are. I suppose do that service whenever I would do fronts right?
When was the last time they were serviced? Timkens are pretty tough....well, any cone/tapered roller is pretty tough but imo, Timkens are on top of the heap. Also important to make sure they have some clearance cold. Can't remember the book specs but iirc, .010 to .015" was the recommendation but I usually just made sure there was a hair of play and have never had a problem. If you can 'see' in and out movement, it might be too loose. If you can hear it but not see it....good. .030 or so is way too much. .035 is spark plug gap and that's a lot and way too much.
While the axle is pulled out, replace both seals.....and, as a personal opinion....REPACK the bearings with an NLG#2 OR #3 SYNTHETIC WHEEL BEARING GREASE......and as others have noted, following FSM procedures, make sure there is 0.008" to 0.010" end play to allow for thermal expansion.......AND if the bearings are worn, replace both the cup (bearing race) AND cone (roller assembly) as a set......DO NOT MIX MATCH PARTS...old cone with new cup and vise versa.........just my opinion of course.....
