When I dragged my Rocky from it’s grave back to my garage, I noticed it was pulling to one side and the wheel bearings were very noisy. The dragging to one side suggested one of the brakes was dragging, and the wheel bearings were tired after having covered over who knows how many kilometers, most of which with big off road tires and very aggressive wheel spacers.
Everything was badly rusted and the brake discs had a thick lip on them, meaning they were way overdue for replacement.
I started disassembly by taking off the brake calipers. These were seized and quite the pain to remove. Upon further inspection, they would require a full rebuild as the pistons had severe rust pitting. I ordered a kit off ebay and got to work replacing all the seals and putting in some brand new pistons. To finish them off I gave them a red paint job and put in some Brembo brake pads.
Then I moved on to changing the brake discs, which required disassembly of the manual locking hubs.
Finally after removing the steering knuckle I could access everything I needed to replace. I started by removing the old brake discs and sanding and painting all the rusty old parts. I then put the new discs on and replaced the wheel bearings.
On the actual swivel hub itself I degreased everything, cleaned off the rust and filled in any small rust craters with JB Weld. Then I proceeded to install all the new seals and bearings, and greased everything up again.
The steering knukle was then put back on, and the rusted out brake protection plates were replaced with some 3mm galvanized steel ones , designed and made by myself. Now the new discs could also finally go on.
I then proceeded to reinstall the freshly painted locking hubs and calipers and voila, a fully restored front axle.
