Ok, I need help. I can't get a hold of EMS to ask them, so I'm coming here, to see if any of you have experience with manual locking hubs on a D60. Ever since I had to pull my hub apart to replace the bearings, I've had a howling sound at 40mph and faster, with an occasional knocking sound.

I've pulled the hub off, replaced both the inner and outer bearings and races, replaced the spindle bearing and seals tonight, and yet it's still howling. The only two things I can think of right now is that either my stubshaft is bad, which I have a hard time believing right now, or my bearing preload is all jacked up. Problem is, I've seen so many different opinions on how to set the bearing preload on a D60 axle, that I'm lost.

What I was thinking of doing when I get my new bearings and races in, was setting the bearing preload by tightening the inner nut to 50 ft lbs, backing off 1 full turn, and retorquing to 10ft lbs. Then putting the spacer washer on, and putting the outer nut on. Does that sound about right, or am I way off? I know my bearings aren't too tight right now, because I can spin the wheel easily, with it up off the ground, and I don't hear any noises. Also, the hub's not hot when I get done driving it, so I'm thinking the howling noise is the fact that my preload is too loose, and the bearing(s) are just knocking around inside the hub. I really need to get this figured out sooner rather than later, so any help you could offer would be greatly appreciated!

 

Are you positive the hubs are not engaged?

 

Positive. I've checked them by hand, as I was wondering about that when it first started happening, but I can lock the hub, and unlock it, and see the difference when spinning the axleshaft by hand.

 

and your sure its not just POS mud tire howl?

 

Do you have Ford spindles, is that how you got lockouts ?