juddspaintballs
my balls are painted!
I need a part number or bolt size for the bolts that hold the wheel hub assembly onto the spindles on my 1999 K1500 Suburban 6.5L with 8 lug wheels. Dealer isn't open today.
I also need torque specs for the upper and lower ball joints, outer tie-rod ends, caliper mounting bolts, and wheel hub bolts. Should I anti-seize the wheel hub bolts or locktite them?
The back story:
This started out as a simple brake job on my 1999 K1500 Suburban. I noticed a bad rotor, so I began to get to the rotor, which (although I probably already knew it and was just pretending it wasn't there) I then noticed that the wheel bearing was a bit loose and so was the other side. So I decided to check the ball joints too. Both uppers are bad, but lowers are still good. The uppers are still OEM at 252k miles.
At any rate, I started disassembling the wheel hub assemblies and the passenger wheel hub was giving me fits getting those bolts off with a long breaker or an impact. The upper front wheel hub bolt would not budge, so I decided that the tie-rod was in the way and went to remove that, which I then screwed up. That bolt head wound up rounding off, even using a 6 point socket with the tip ground down so there was no rounded edge on the tip of the socket. So I pulled the spindle off to torch the bolt head off, during which time I screwed up the lower ball joint as well.
So now I'm at the point where I'm already replacing 3 ball joints out of necessity, I need two new wheel bearings, I've already replaced the brake pads and I was working on a rotor, and one tie-rod end. I decided that wheel hubs are cheap enough that I'll replace the whole unit, especially since my ABS light is on due to a bad wheel sensor. If I'm doing 3 ball joints, I might as well make it 4 so I know they're all new and it's not much more work at this point. I bought a 2nd tie-rod end for the other side so I might as well do that one too so I can pull that spindle completely off and clean it up and because pressing out that lower ball joint will be easier without the spindle in the way. Well heck, now that I'm putting two new wheel hub assemblies back on, 4 ball joints, 2 tie-rod ends, brake pads and one new rotor, I might as well put a 2nd rotor on so it's new too and hey, the bleeders are sheared off on my calipers and the fluid looks pretty nasty so I'll add 2 rebuilt calipers to the cart along with a gallon of DOT 3. Sheesh! I started with brake pads and now I have a whole new front end except for the inner tie-rod ends (good), idler arm (good), bushings (already replaced), and shocks (still good). Now I just need an alignment and new tires and I should be good to go for many more miles. Maybe now I'll finally get to the coolant system flush...
I also need torque specs for the upper and lower ball joints, outer tie-rod ends, caliper mounting bolts, and wheel hub bolts. Should I anti-seize the wheel hub bolts or locktite them?
The back story:
This started out as a simple brake job on my 1999 K1500 Suburban. I noticed a bad rotor, so I began to get to the rotor, which (although I probably already knew it and was just pretending it wasn't there) I then noticed that the wheel bearing was a bit loose and so was the other side. So I decided to check the ball joints too. Both uppers are bad, but lowers are still good. The uppers are still OEM at 252k miles.
At any rate, I started disassembling the wheel hub assemblies and the passenger wheel hub was giving me fits getting those bolts off with a long breaker or an impact. The upper front wheel hub bolt would not budge, so I decided that the tie-rod was in the way and went to remove that, which I then screwed up. That bolt head wound up rounding off, even using a 6 point socket with the tip ground down so there was no rounded edge on the tip of the socket. So I pulled the spindle off to torch the bolt head off, during which time I screwed up the lower ball joint as well.
So now I'm at the point where I'm already replacing 3 ball joints out of necessity, I need two new wheel bearings, I've already replaced the brake pads and I was working on a rotor, and one tie-rod end. I decided that wheel hubs are cheap enough that I'll replace the whole unit, especially since my ABS light is on due to a bad wheel sensor. If I'm doing 3 ball joints, I might as well make it 4 so I know they're all new and it's not much more work at this point. I bought a 2nd tie-rod end for the other side so I might as well do that one too so I can pull that spindle completely off and clean it up and because pressing out that lower ball joint will be easier without the spindle in the way. Well heck, now that I'm putting two new wheel hub assemblies back on, 4 ball joints, 2 tie-rod ends, brake pads and one new rotor, I might as well put a 2nd rotor on so it's new too and hey, the bleeders are sheared off on my calipers and the fluid looks pretty nasty so I'll add 2 rebuilt calipers to the cart along with a gallon of DOT 3. Sheesh! I started with brake pads and now I have a whole new front end except for the inner tie-rod ends (good), idler arm (good), bushings (already replaced), and shocks (still good). Now I just need an alignment and new tires and I should be good to go for many more miles. Maybe now I'll finally get to the coolant system flush...