OMG! Wheel at slant, locked, and grinding the brake housing. Help!

[Ginny]

Dear people smarter than me,

Coming home from college I started getting a nasty metel and on metal grinding noise from my right front tire area. I kept stopping but could see nothing. I had some 'help' but they saw nothing. With about a hundred miles to go, I simply kept going. The car then started pulling badly to the right, so I stopped by a cornfield and had it towed.

In the morning when I looked at it, the tire was about 5 degrees tilted inward at the top, and about 3 degrees tilted inward toward the back side. It has ground away some of the brake housing!

If someone can give me a good idea as to what this is, I can fix it (I'm a tom boy with a manual and internet access) or sweet talk someone into fixing it for me. I do NOT want to have it towed to a garage and have them try to pay off their kids braces on my bill.

Please help!

Pictures of it linked below! I do photography/modelling on the side, so the pictures SHOULD help.

http://s1258.photobucket.com/albums/ii530/GinnyH1992/

Thanks in advance for any help in diagnostics!

Gin

 

[jremington59]

Looks to me like your wheel bearing is gone. Also looks like it's destroyed the end of the cv shaft and who knows what else. You didn't notice any kind of grinding or shaking over the last couple thousand miles or so? It may just be the wheel bearing if your lucky. You need to get the jackstand under there a little sturdier and have the hub removed to see what else got hurt.

Here's a thread that will walk you right through it.

http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=165429

 

[Ginny]

Thank you so much! I heard a bit of grinding every once in a while but figured it was the brake pads which I had planned on messing with this week. Sigh... Oh well, it was a 'magic free car' so I'm happy to fix it if needed.

 

[jremington59]

Oh, it's needed. About the only tool you'll need that most people don't have is a 32 mm socket for the hub bolt. Get a can of PB blaster and spray everything good and it's not that bad of job. In the vendors section, check Rock Auto for parts.

 

[ddarko]

Also, the rubber boot on the tie rod end looks like it'll peel off before too long. Once that happens the grease dries up and the ball-in-cup joint will degrade until it pops out and you lose steering. It's not an expensive part, I'd replace it while you're working in that area and check the other side too.

 

[Ginny]

Awesome, thanks ddarko. Yeah, poking about it looks like several things need replaced.

jreminton59 - you mentioned that the cv shaft end looks destroyed. Looking at parts I don't SEE a 'cv shaft'. Should I read this as 'replace the axel while you're at it'?

Final question - the brake assemply is eaten into a bit (one of the first pictures). Does this need replaced as well or is this okay once everything else is straight?

 

[Turbo79]

Oh, it's needed. About the only tool you'll need that most people don't have is a 32 mm socket for the hub bolt. Get a can of PB blaster and spray everything good and it's not that bad of job. In the vendors section, check Rock Auto for parts.

Does that mean that most folks just pound on the end of the shaft to get it out, rather than use a puller? Wince! It doesn't matter in this case, if the bearing is destroyed, but isn't that a... for "good" mechanical work on an axle for the long run?

On our newly acquired '96 Exp 4 door, it looks like the previous owner did that. He said that he had replaced the outer bearing recently, and there are 'dimples' in the end and it's slightly mushroomed.

I do know that repair manuals warn against this, so when I went to front wheel drive vehicles I bought a puller for this sort of thing.

Also, get a new axle nut (crimp is gone on a used one), and be sure to torque it properly, even if you have to rent a torque wrench.

Call me Mr. Cautious, but I hang around some fellows who prep. cars for road racing, and they torque anything having to do with the wheels and suspension, and all rotating engine assemblies.

 

[1996BLKBauer]

Awesome, thanks ddarko. Yeah, poking about it looks like several things need replaced.

jreminton59 - you mentioned that the cv shaft end looks destroyed. Looking at parts I don't SEE a 'cv shaft'. Should I read this as 'replace the axel while you're at it'?

Final question - the brake assemply is eaten into a bit (one of the first pictures). Does this need replaced as well or is this okay once everything else is straight?

It does not seem that the caliper it's self is bad, just the caliper bracket is chewed up, you can get a replacement at a junk yard for nothing, all it is a piece of metal that is cast, and holds the caliper to the hub.

I think this was emntioned above, but while your doing one side, you might aswell do both, I am sure the other side has the same miles, so it will shortly do the same thing.

 

[jremington59]

I use a puller to start the shaft out of the hub if it's stuck and takes much more than a tap from a hammer to loosen it. In this case I'm not sure it matters as the bearing looks disintigrated and the spline on the axle shaft is probably stripped also. But who knows, lol.

Does that mean that most folks just pound on the end of the shaft to get it out, rather than use a puller? Wince! It doesn't matter in this case, if the bearing is destroyed, but isn't that a... for "good" mechanical work on an axle for the long run?

On our newly acquired '96 Exp 4 door, it looks like the previous owner did that. He said that he had replaced the outer bearing recently, and there are 'dimples' in the end and it's slightly mushroomed.

I do know that repair manuals warn against this, so when I went to front wheel drive vehicles I bought a puller for this sort of thing.

Also, get a new axle nut (crimp is gone on a used one), and be sure to torque it properly, even if you have to rent a torque wrench.

Call me Mr. Cautious, but I hang around some fellows who prep. cars for road racing, and they torque anything having to do with the wheels and suspension, and all rotating engine assemblies.

 

[swashbuckler]

Does that mean that most folks just pound on the end of the shaft to get it out, rather than use a puller? Wince! It doesn't matter in this case, if the bearing is destroyed, but isn't that a... for "good" mechanical work on an axle for the long run?

On our newly acquired '96 Exp 4 door, it looks like the previous owner did that. He said that he had replaced the outer bearing recently, and there are 'dimples' in the end and it's slightly mushroomed.

I do know that repair manuals warn against this, so when I went to front wheel drive vehicles I bought a puller for this sort of thing.

Also, get a new axle nut (crimp is gone on a used one), and be sure to torque it properly, even if you have to rent a torque wrench.

Call me Mr. Cautious, but I hang around some fellows who prep. cars for road racing, and they torque anything having to do with the wheels and suspension, and all rotating engine assemblies.

Do you normally have trouble getting the CV out of the bearing assembly? I've never had to change mine, but I just did my upper and lower bearings and the CV slipped right out of the spindle...

 

[jremington59]

In the parts page go to drivetrain and then cv half shaft assemblies.

http://www.rockauto.com/catalog/raframecatalog.php

Awesome, thanks ddarko. Yeah, poking about it looks like several things need replaced.

jreminton59 - you mentioned that the cv shaft end looks destroyed. Looking at parts I don't SEE a 'cv shaft'. Should I read this as 'replace the axel while you're at it'?

Final question - the brake assemply is eaten into a bit (one of the first pictures). Does this need replaced as well or is this okay once everything else is straight?

 

[Turbo79]

Do you normally have trouble getting the CV out of the bearing assembly? I've never had to change mine, but I just did my upper and lower bearings and the CV slipped right out of the spindle...

I've never (yet ) pulled a (Gen II) Explorer assembly, but on the two Tauruses and the one Tempo I've done, I just used a wheel puller, didn't pound on it other than very lightly, and I did have to torque on the puller some before the axle shaft/CV joint assy. would pop out of there. So maybe an Explorer CV assy. isn't as tight as those three FWD cars, but they sure look similar in construction.

The wheel hub nut torque for the front wheel bearings on a '96 Explorer is 157to 213 ft-lbs. , that's pretty tight. Could be that in a lot of cases the axle won't just slip out, I'm thinking.

 

[jremington59]

On my 97 the passenger side was "frozen" together and wouldn't budge with around 5 min of tapping the nut on the end of the shaft so I used the puller. Once you break it free it comes right apart.The drivers side came right apart on it's own.