Axle cork & Hub flip

[wilco]

Ready to flip hubs and repack axles...Can you use locktight gasket eliminater in place of the small cork piece when repacking your hubs???

 

[Angus1]

I use silicone instead of cork, so far so good.

 

[Barrman]

I aslo used rtv instead of cork on mine. All good so far.

 

[Big Mike's Motor Pool]

get permatex right stuff. it comes in a variety of containers but you most commonly see it in the pressurized can with the nozzle. its 1 minute gasket maker. it really nice

 

[Jake0147]

...Can you use locktight gasket eliminater in place of the small cork piece...

No, good name but the wrong stuff. I suspect that the above solution with silicone gasket makers will be OK, but prep and careful application would be required. Locktite does offer some of these in their brand, but gasket eliminator (515, 518, 54 is an inappropriate product for this purpose. Gasket eliminator would be just fine and very appropriate to seal the axle flange to the hub when you bolt that back on, but silicone gasket maker is quite acceptable here as well.

 

[FormerNewMVGuy]

RE: Re: Axle cork & Hub flip

Well you can buy a whole sheet of rubberized cork from Mcmaster=carr for 13 dollars and that is enough to make about a thousand inserts. I know thats what i did and i have no worries about leaks.

 

[ida34]

RE: Re: Axle cork & Hub flip

Older model chevy 350 valve cover gaskets work great also. That being said, the last set I did got silicone instead of the cork.

 

[SrIrie]

Permatex worked fine here about 3500 miles so far

 

[gbooth]

I used silicone on mine as well with no problums.

 

[ARMYMAN30YearsPlus]

I used the high temp silicone just in case it starts getting warm in there.

 

[otisroy]

This helpful bit of randomness popped up about making your own cork gasket:

http://www.steelsoldiers.com/index....cork_seal&name=gallery&include=view_photo.php

 

[OPCOM]

I've always used cork along with some silicon slathered on it. To use silicon alone, the axle housing must be extremely clean. Found out the hard way.

 

[kurtkds]

It looks like I need to get in the the rear axle to replace the outer oil seal or repair/ replace the cork plug. I've done some searching for a size of the socket to remove the axle nut. I've gome up with a 3" socket. Is this correct?

If not what is the correct size?

 

[Floridianson]

Yes 3" oct

 

[kurtkds]

Well I finally got around to checking that leaking seal after that wheel started making some noise the other day.

I looks like a newbie in the motor pool worked on it before it hit GL. I found that the brake shoe retainer bolts had worked loose and were allowing the leading shoe to pull away from the backing plate and wedge itself up against the drum and binding up. It also made for long pedal travel since the leading shoe wasn't sitting on the adjuster cam.

I also found that the axle nut wasn't tightened down enough and was allowing the inner race to spin on the spindle plus the outer seal had been bent outward when that mech was trying to remove the seal and no amount of cork was going to stop the leak.


I had a cork valve cover gasket sitting around so I used that for the wedge and replaced the outer seal and repacked the bearings. I also used some loctite bearing retainer to hold the inner race in place plus I tightened the locking nuts some more.

 

[kennys@wi.rr.com]

Does anyone have a picture of where these cork gaskets go or what they look like? Doing my rear hubs now and have seen no cork anywhere. Maybe this is adding to my leak?

Thank you

 

[DieselBob]

Hope this helps

 

[kennys@wi.rr.com]

You know after reading a bunch of threds and thinking more about this it hit me, maybe my seals aren't bad but someone neve put the cork in the keyway? I read in one thred that the rear seal is a greese only seal and when oil mixes with the bearing greese it will wash past the rear seal. It also stated that this happens when oil leaks past the key way cork. Funny thing is that the seals that are on there are new and shinny still and I didn't see anything in the key way. Could I be onto something or is it wishful thinking?

And thank you for the post DieselBob, very helpful.

 

[gimpyrobb]

It has been known to happen! Try putting a wedge(I use rubber pieces with RTV) in and see what happens.

 

[kennys@wi.rr.com]

First stop tomorrow is the home store for a 3" pvc coupler to make the seal tool. Then I will rtv the keyway and put her back together and see what happens. Wish I would have looked at that closer before I bought the seals and took it all off. **** ADD I could have saved so much work by just reading and looking for the small stuff.