taper won't replace bronze in Dana 44

[tonielena]

Having gotten most of what I wanted accomplished on my W200 so far; electrics, broken studs, pittman arm/tire clearance, it was time to do the knuckle bearings on the small Dana 44 front axle. Ended up getting taper bearing kit from Torque King with tapers for both upper (factory bronze bushing) and lower (factory taper) bearings in the knuckles. Really not difficult to do at all except that the taper supplied will not fit on the pin of the steering arm and upper knuckle. The lower is direct replacement, but the pin that locates the upper, previously bronze, bearing is splined to lock it to the bronze bearing and the splined dimension is .050 (50 thousandths) larger diameter than the smooth pin that the bearing slides on to for the bottom. No mention of this at all in the discussion with TK when purchasing these parts. I can't believe they don't know unless people don't contact them reporting the problem and I'm certain that others have experienced this because my truck has had the bronze race in the upper axle end replaced with a steel one for the roller, but the bronze cone was re used probably because the taper won't fit. Several ways to fix this, all time consuming, when I would have been done this weekend had the parts supplied actually fit as advertised. Getting really tired of the lack of conscience with sellers who don't care about their product but just want your money. I never had that luxury in my 45 years in business. Keep you posted.

[PwrWgnDrvr]

All the weight sits on the lower roller bearing. They must have thought bronze was adequate for the upper, but they didn't realize the lateral load is significant, such that the bronze cones in my truck were massively mushroomed on the outside edge. I don't ever recall seeing or reading that the races were also bronze. All my trucks have steel races in the uppers with the bronze cones, including my first one bought in 1978 with 78,000 miles. The splines are there to be sure they actually rotate in the race and not on the shaft. Be sure to set the correct lash with the shims on the uppers.

[tonielena]

Thanks for the reply. The bronze cone was worn less than I expected to see, full face on one side but a small lip at the top on the other side. The splines were fairly loose, however and had more to do with upper play than the cone which was well greased. I'm going to remove the splines and make the upper pin so it fits in a taper the same as the bottom. The steel race seems to be dimensionally the same as that for the taper and is perfectly smooth and the taper seats fine with full contact across the rollers. I have no prticular problem with the bronze upper but why didn't they design this with the same taper brng top and bottom, would have been so much simpler. I suppose some engineer thought that the bronze bush, being solid and full face, would take a greater load with an acceptable wear life. Let you know how this works out, thanks.

[tonielena]

Well I thought about how to do this enough, given the tools presently at my disposal. The upper brng locating pins are one piece forged on the pass side, with splines to capture the bronze bushing, and the steering arm has a splined pin pushed through the casting and the splines on the pin are a bit softer than the forged piece. While the pin holding the taper lower brngs is about .622, the splines in the upper pins increase the diameter to about .675 and the taper brng will not go on even though the race is the same as the taper for the bronze bushing. I decided to remove the splines and take the upper pins diameter to .625 and use the tapers on the top as well as the bottom. Machining the splines could be done several ways but they were hard enough that even with a mill or lathe, I think the splines would have to be ground off with stones. I did mine by hand puting the parts to be worked on in a large vise and rotating them as I ground the splines off with 1/2 inch x 1/2 inch brown stones in a Dremel tool. The tool was held vertically parallel to the pin and moved around the pin in continuous rotation as the splines were worn down. The splines provided a good reference to depth of cut as well as comparison from side to side to make sure I was staying concentric to the pin. Also easy to see taper as the spline showed larger or smaller if they weren't ground straight. It turns out that when the splines are all gone, the pin is about .625. From this point I finished the pins by hand with flat stones until the bearing just slipped on. In the end the pins came out very straight and round and the bearings fit tighter than the factory ones. Took about an hour for the pass side because it is a little harder and I took my time until I was sure of what I was doing. The bit softer steering arm took about 30 minutes. Now just to put things back together, tapers top and bottom that will always fit from now on.

[PwrWgnDrvr]

Nice solution and simple to do. Always wanted to do that on my W200's, but switched to driving the W300 daily so never got around to it. And, the bearing is almost stationary most of the time, only moving back and forth a quarter turn or so, so its not like it gets millions of revolutions like a typical rotating bearing,

[tonielena]

Thanks. Fairly easy, but does require a bit of finesse and attention to detail or you compound your problems. One shot to do it right per part. I'm old, the truck is old, and it will never see many miles during our time together but I want it reliable and useful, hence all the upgrades during its refurbishment. Now I don't have to search for a bronze, splined tapered bushing should I ever need to renew these parts again.

[MikeM]

If I followed this thread correctly, u have/had the bronze taper bushings on the upper knuckle of the passenger side as well? I have a 68 W200 and only had the bronze bushing on upper drivers side. I have never seen or heard of the passenger side having the upper bronze bushing on the small knuckle dana 44. Interesting. I ended up getting a different steering arm that used they key version of the bushing which I ended up converting to using a bearing as well.

MikeM

[tonielena]

Yes, bronze with splines on both uppers. Finished conversions to use rollers on top and bottom, set preload to 10 in/lb torque both sides and the truck drives beautifully with taper rollers both sides. A little extra work but I'm glad I went to the trouble. Seems to be all kinds of variations on these trucks, but I have to wonder how many hands beside the factory assembly guys have worked and maybe changed things as we have in the last 50 years.