Seals around the axles - where best to buy?

[hike]

I've been playing with this off road a bit on 3-5' step up berms around my property. (All with 3.07 diffs) With the old 2:1 hubs, you give a little pedal and it crawls over the step. With the eco, you give a little pedal and there's a slight delay, it builds and then crawls over the step, no overgear slippage. I feel like the difference simply requires a more proportional foot that before.

With the EcoHubs on 3.90's I wish I could reprogram the pedal to react more slowly at first and progressively become more responsive. Better yet 4.50's might be about perfect—

 

[GeneralDisorder]

Seal drivers aren't typically necessary. Honestly can't recall the last time I used one.... or had a leaking seal (that I installed). Usual weapons of choice - screwdrivers, punches, and socket extensions. Steady hand and an eagle eye. But to each their own as long as the job gets done with good results.

 

[hike]

Seal drivers aren't typically necessary. Honestly can't recall the last time I used one.... or had a leaking seal (that I installed). Usual weapons of choice - screwdrivers, punches, and socket extensions. Steady hand and an eagle eye. But to each their own as long as the job gets done with good results.

I have never owned one either, this LMTV has me buying tools I didn't already have. Like impact tools and such, 20 bolts a split rim over 200#?

 

[GeneralDisorder]

I have never owned one either, this LMTV has me buying tools I didn't already have. Like impact tools and such, 20 bolts a split rim over 200#?

Oh yeah. I've bought a whole lot of tools for the big truck.

Not a stranger to seal drivers - have used plenty and had to make a few over the years but have not bothered in a lot more years..... you learn techniques to get the job done without some of those special tools "training wheels" eventually. I've done and been involved in 4 trucks worth of hub services and ECO installs. Not a single seal driver to be seen at the scene as it were - and not one of them have any leaky seals.

 

[Keith Knight]

I have a machine shop so I just made a driver.
thanks for the information.

 

[GeneralDisorder]

I have a machine shop so I just made a driver.
thanks for the information.

Delrin makes great drivers and machines beautifully. Expensive though. Making drivers on the old lathe takes time and I'll have the job done before the driver is made. Great if you need to hand the driver off to a lowest common denominator (grunt) to use the tooling repetitively with his brain set on autopilot.

If you're doing this job every ten years.... Waste of time IMO.

 

[Ronmar]

Yea I usually make drivers or press arbors as necessary. one reason I usually keep scrap structural elements(pipes and bars)...

 

[Ronmar]

With the EcoHubs on 3.90's I wish I could reprogram the pedal to react more slowly at first and progressively become more responsive. Better yet 4.50's might be about perfect—

yea I think we came up with the ideal being ~4.5-4.7:1... A 3126/C7 might be able to use a different TPS, a 3116 would require a different lever arm, or perhaps even an eccentric cam to deliver a variable/progressive throttle rate...

 

[GeneralDisorder]

Yea I usually make drivers or press arbors as necessary. one reason I usually keep scrap structural elements(pipes and bars)...

Definitely. Have a large assortment of bearing races, pipe and pipe caps, assorted round chunks of odd bits and pieces - in a bucket under the press. Sockets (impact sockets typically) stand in often for pressing duties as well.

 

[aw113sgte]

Well - there are plenty of parts trucks out there and more arriving in the market every day. LOTS of these trucks still going through DLA. Many of them now with the 4x4 high-pinion rear axle which would be a better choice all around even if you stick with the 3.07's because it addresses at least one of the design flaws and allows the u-joints to run inside their design envelope and thus dramatically increase their lifespan.

It sucks that you basically have to redo the whole enchilada but for +3 mpg and potentially avoiding a catastrophic u-joint failure...... There's a Facebook group member that essentially totaled his truck recently with a u-joint failure. The failure decimated his under-carriage, broke the transmission behind the bell-housing, and cracked the engine block. Being an A0 truck...... the recommendation from most of us is to find another (newer hopefully) truck and swap his 1079 box onto it. Easier than replacing engine and transmission and rear axle and everything else it shattered and mutilated. Real F'ing mess he's got on his hands.

I saw that ...now I'm looking at making some drive shaft hoops.

 

[aw113sgte]

Only doing rears right now. Fronts will be another time; looking forward to learning from you.

What are you using for a seal driver? The tool I found is $200, though I don't want to do this again, so $200—

I found a screwdriver worked great. You need to know what you're doing and work the seal in but it worked better than the seal driver I had (don't have a press)

 

[wheelspinner]

If those are the CTIS seals you need-I have plenty available