Farmall BN front wheel bearings

[Ken Hansen]

The other day I noticed the right front tire looked soft, sure enough aired it up and air came out almost as fast as it went in!

Drove left tire up on a block of wood to let me pull the right side. That's when I noticed the slop in the wheel bearings. Dang guess this is going to be a little more work!

Pulled the three bolts and removed the cover, not good very rusty. I was a little surprised as this BN lives inside year round when not mowing the lawn and only occasionally has it been hosed down with garden hose.

After removing the right wheel jacked up front end and sure enough the left side is also loose. Left that on for now as at least I can move the tractor on one wheel if needed.

Checked a couple sources for bearings and seals online and they all seam to come in close to the same so I decided to give Yesterday's the order as they are good to run this forum for us.

While waiting for those parts I can get to fixing the flat, turns out it looks like I may have pinched or damaged the tube when I had installed the "new to me tire" last year. Put a patch on it and will see if that holds up.

By the way not sure if anyone else has done it but I am running a pair of "Temporary Spare" car tires for front tires. I got one for free and the other at the auto recycler I think cost maybe $15.00. For the use mowing they seem to work find and don't dig in on the soft ground when making turns.

 

[old]

All I do when I need wheel bearing is take the old one to O'Reilly's and they match them up and I do that with the seal also.

 

[Ken Hansen]

I'm probably getting ahead of myself on the front wheel bearings and seals of this BN but as the parts won't be hear till tomorrow I have nothing to do today!

I noticed in the wheel bearing and seal kit there are two felts one #49118DA and one #55453D. According to what I can find online one is a little larger OD and thinner than the other. When I pulled this apart I only saw one felt back inside the dust shield that is riveted to the axle.

As this kit appears to fit a range of machines I'm guessing that the felt I need depends on application. Just going by the size of what I recall coming out I would say my BN would use the thicker #55453D felt.

If that is the case and someone know what the other felt fits I'd be glad to pass the extras on for the cost of a couple stamps.

 

[Ken Hansen]

Well the bearing and seal kits showed up Tuesday and today was Farmall day!

A couple somewhat minor problems.

First the seals that were in there last were ones that the lip ran on the spindle and were press fit in the hubs. As I was the last person to touch the the front wheels maybe 30+ years ago I can only guess that I had just ordered seals to match what was already in there.

The new seals which look like what my Farmall book shows are [b:91866cf8ec][i:91866cf8ec]suppose[/i:91866cf8ec][/b:91866cf8ec] to be a press fit on the spindle and the lip runs on a wear ring pressed into the hub just outside of the inner wheel bearing.

I emphasized the word suppose because the spindle area for the seal was a bit rusty and worn so now the seals were a slip fit. That was not going to work so I decided to install them with Lock-tite. To hold them in place while the Loctite cured I made a couple spacers out of some PVC pipe that was cut to a length so I could use a big flat washer and the axle nuts to hold the seal in place.

Next problem was those wear sleeves in the hubs. One of them went in about half way before getting even snug and the other one slid in all the way with all most no pressure. So back to the bottle of Loctite retaining compound. A little bit of Loctite primer helps those things set up nice and fast!

Other than those little hic-ups the rest went smooth, packed bearings with my handy bearing packer and slide every thing together. No hub cap gaskets included in bearing/seal kits so a little 510 Loctite flange sealant and that was a done deal. As you can probably guess I have an assortment of Loctite from the 45+ years of working as a heavy equipment mechanic!

Wheels turn nice and smooth with no wobbles or grinding noise.


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