Bought a CC Dually 454 Whipple

[Supercharged111]

Dont forget to share with us as well.

Only if it's good and achieves the desired result! The quickie I shot already is lame because nothing happens really.

 

[Supercharged111]

Today I changed my OS on my 411. I've never been happy with TCC lockup under load. I also hated the TCC unlock when you lift off the throttle. Since this truck has internal wear on the pump to forward drum it's even worse. This is a great workaround as long as you're in OD. It also fixes the 4lo not shifting issue. Also also, it lets me use custom operating system 5 instead of 3, and the OS that it's based on has more features too. Something I should have done EONS ago. It fired immediately and drove normally, but it was LEAN in closed loop at an idle. It must want the same added fuel from a cold start that my 1500 does so I added that back in. I left it out initially as this intake manifold seems better than the 350 marine intake when it comes to transient fueling.

 

[Supercharged111]

So confession time. It would seem that I screwed up the preload on the left rear drum/hub when I dealt with the parking brake ordeal.

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Yeah that's not good. Truck felt nutless after the tune, but it would appear that the tune was not to blame. All that and the damn thing never made a sound. Ended up trashing the hub but I think I saved the spindle. I was rewarded with a junkyard fresh drum and hub with intact USA made Timken bearings today and it cleaned up nicely.

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I have a couple questions to float by someone I trust tomorrow and then I can just slam it in and go. I think. First concern is the spindle itself. The old inner bearing's inner race spun, galled, and welded itself to the spindle. Overall this resulted in a metal deposit on the spindle. The hub on the other hand experienced a significant metal withdrawal. The question is what do I risk by slamming a bearing onto a spindle that may have a couple thou worth of crap on top? I whizzed it down pretty good so I think it's pretty close. I picked up a socket today so I can sink that spindle nut down as tight as it takes to seat that inner bearing instead of tapping in the recesses with a hammer and screwdriver. Next question is should I have squirted some gear oil in there before sealing it all up? My gut says no as the pig piddles gear oil into the hub when filled fully, but my follow on is does the gear oil get slung in a way under motion that would further saturate the hubs? And finally, how right is too tight for a parking brake adjustment? Should the bar dealie be fully backed off or is a bare minimum amount of slack sufficient?

 

[Road Trip]

So confession time. It would seem that I screwed up the preload on the left rear drum/hub when I dealt with the parking brake ordeal.

You must be registered for see images attach

Yeah that's not good. Truck felt nutless after the tune, but it would appear that the tune was not to blame. All that and the damn thing never made a sound. Ended up trashing the hub but I think I saved the spindle. I was rewarded with a junkyard fresh drum and hub with intact USA made Timken bearings today and it cleaned up nicely.

You must be registered for see images attach

I have a couple questions to float by someone I trust tomorrow and then I can just slam it in and go. I think. First concern is the spindle itself. The old inner bearing's inner race spun, galled, and welded itself to the spindle. Overall this resulted in a metal deposit on the spindle. The hub on the other hand experienced a significant metal withdrawal. The question is what do I risk by slamming a bearing onto a spindle that may have a couple thou worth of crap on top? I whizzed it down pretty good so I think it's pretty close. I picked up a socket today so I can sink that spindle nut down as tight as it takes to seat that inner bearing instead of tapping in the recesses with a hammer and screwdriver. Next question is should I have squirted some gear oil in there before sealing it all up? My gut says no as the pig piddles gear oil into the hub when filled fully, but my follow on is does the gear oil get slung in a way under motion that would further saturate the hubs? And finally, how right is too tight for a parking brake adjustment? Should the bar dealie be fully backed off or is a bare minimum amount of slack sufficient?

Alright, it looks like you've got the hardest part done already. (Sourcing a complete, tested good assembly
that passes a visual inspection: Round Drum + Good hub + Timken bearings.) Now to get that assembly
on your truck so that it lasts a good, long time.

As for your question about the new bearing onto the existing spindle. If it was me, with the bearing in hand,
I would test fit > tune the high spot(s) > test fit > tune the high spot(s) > loop until I just achieve a slip fit.

No doubt that we could persuade/force that bearing over any remnants of the previous race that galled itself
to the spindle, but for a long lasting fix I wouldn't want to put that kind of stress/distortion on the inner race
of the new wheel bearing? And by the same token, I wouldn't want to overdo it and end up with a sloppy fit
between the spindle and inner bearing race? So, I'd sneak on up that slip fit, reclean the bearing, install a new
seal, and assemble that precision assembly per the manual.

Speaking of which, last summer I was into my own rear brakes on my '99 C2500, thanks to the PO deleting the
RR parking brake cable instead of replacing it? And I went down that rear brake rabbit hole, and on the way out
I had to bone up on what was the proper way to set up the full-floater bearing preload back there?

It took a lot of digging, for there was so much misinformation out there, but in post #85 of my rebuild thread (over here )
I documented what I found, and in there you will find a link to a Timken video that shows you exactly what you
are looking for. More importantly, the Timken advice is in agreement with what I found in my '99 C/K Service Manual. (!)

(By the way, there is some background info on the brake stuff in post #84, which in turn has a back link to #79.
And in post #86 I show how I set my own end play. And finally in #89 I list the parking brake part numbers I used.)
No doubt more than you want to know about my own rear brake/FF bearing odyssey. :0)

Let's see. Your last question about the parking brake adjustment? What's works for me is to first loosen up
the parking brake cables enough to be sure that they are fully OUT of the 'brake shoe positioning circuit'.
(ie: you want the shoes against the pivot on top & the self-adjuster mechanism on the bottom.)

Now adjust the shoes via the self-adjuster star wheel for a *light* drag when spinning the drum by hand. (Like you
can just hear the shoes starting to drag when spinning the drum, but stop adjusting before it takes real torque
to counter the shoe drag.)

Cross-check: A perfectly round drum will give you a steady light drag sound for the full 360° of rotation, whereas
a drum with a bit of a warp in it will give you a 'whoosh quiet whoosh quiet whoosh' etc as you rotate the drum.
Few things in life are perfect, so unless the issue is gross I just note the sound for future reference if I have to
come back there looking for the cause of a pulsing brake pedal down the road.

And now that the brake shoes are properly adjusted to the drums, now I re-tighten the parking brake cables
just until it takes 3 or 4 clicks on the parking brake pedal to set the parking brake for no vehicle movement. And if the
parking brake pedal comes fully back when you pull the hand release this means that the cable internals are
good and also the springs on your cables are working properly.

And by ongoing monitoring of how many clicks it takes to set your parking brakes you can determine if your
rear drum self-adjusters are doing their job or not. Especially with new shoes, it may go from say, 3 clicks to
4, 5, 6+ in a relatively short period of time. This means that you have to jack up the rear (parking brake off)
and touch up the star wheels (through the access hole in the backing plate) a few clicks until you end up with
that light drag sound again.

If you do both sides and end up back at 3-4 clicks to set the parking brake you are in complete control in this area.
The good news is that once everything beds in to each other the need to manually adjust the rear shoes slows way down.
And having the rear brakes dialed in like this will not only give you less brake pedal travel, it will also give you a shorter
stopping distance, too. Lastly, unless your parking brake cables stretch you shouldn't have to mess with the parking
brake cable adjuster again. (As in, maybe once down the road, and then they stay that length.)

Apologies for the length, but after seeing your pics I just wanted to share with you what is working for
me, all based upon recent 1st-hand experience.

Best of luck getting that wounded warrior back online & ready for duty.

 

[Supercharged111]

So while I couldn't slide just a bearing on by hand, I decided to just bang a new seal into the clean drum and see if it wasn't going to slide on for me as an assembly. To my surprise, it slid right on. Given the resistance the naked bearing gave me, I feel halfway decent about having not taken too much off. Cool. Now to take a step back and make sure all the details are taken care of. I backed the parking brake off until there was a trace of left to right travel in the thing that goes between the shoe and parking brake arm. Next I had a good conversation. I'd been installing these bearings bone dry under the assumption that a fully filled diff will piddle gear oil out to the hubs just sitting on level ground. Apparently this is not the case, and I'll be looking at these diffs with a more critical eye in the future to note the height of fill plug relative to axle tubes. The other thing is the amount of restriction there is for the oil to pass from the pig to the wheel bearings. There are carrier bearings in the way in addition to axle shafts jammed into side gears that aren't meant to flow a significant amount of oil outboard. So I goobered some Brad Penn engine assembly lube (camel snot) onto the bearings and spun them around. I also shot some gear oil into the hub, then set it up on the spindle. With my newly purchased spindle nut socket (for a Dana 70, but worked) I torqued the thing to 50 ft/lb while spinning the drum. When I backed it off and went for zero endplay I was centered between 2 windows so backed it off one and locked it in right there. The I cranked up the shoes until I got them to kiss the drum, figured if they needed to be tighter the self adjuster will have my back as it's not a crappy 8.5" diff. I then gave the hub probably 6 more squirts of gear oil while spinning the drum and it kept drawing it in through the bearing. Next I squirted some into the axle tube itself, slammed the axle shaft back in, wheels, and dropped it on the ground and moved it over off the curb so the road crown could let the remainder of that oil dribble into the hub. It must have worked because I made it to the hangar. The parking brake does suck though. I hate that I can't leave the hubs on to yank a drum as I'm unsure how much endplay that bar now has. Surely it's more than it was before. Problem is that the right side has more slack than the left side. I'm apprehensive about just blindly cranking that parking brake cable without eyes on those bars on both sides, I fear I'd pull on one and have the shoes over-adjusted via the parking brake cable that way.

 

[Road Trip]

So while I couldn't slide just a bearing on by hand, I decided to just bang a new seal into the clean drum and see if it wasn't going to slide on for me as an assembly. To my surprise, it slid right on. Given the resistance the naked bearing gave me, I feel halfway decent about having not taken too much off. Cool. Now to take a step back and make sure all the details are taken care of. I backed the parking brake off until there was a trace of left to right travel in the thing that goes between the shoe and parking brake arm. Next I had a good conversation. I'd been installing these bearings bone dry under the assumption that a fully filled diff will piddle gear oil out to the hubs just sitting on level ground. Apparently this is not the case, and I'll be looking at these diffs with a more critical eye in the future to note the height of fill plug relative to axle tubes. The other thing is the amount of restriction there is for the oil to pass from the pig to the wheel bearings. There are carrier bearings in the way in addition to axle shafts jammed into side gears that aren't meant to flow a significant amount of oil outboard. So I goobered some Brad Penn engine assembly lube (camel snot) onto the bearings and spun them around. I also shot some gear oil into the hub, then set it up on the spindle. With my newly purchased spindle nut socket (for a Dana 70, but worked) I torqued the thing to 50 ft/lb while spinning the drum. When I backed it off and went for zero endplay I was centered between 2 windows so backed it off one and locked it in right there. The I cranked up the shoes until I got them to kiss the drum, figured if they needed to be tighter the self adjuster will have my back as it's not a crappy 8.5" diff. I then gave the hub probably 6 more squirts of gear oil while spinning the drum and it kept drawing it in through the bearing. Next I squirted some into the axle tube itself, slammed the axle shaft back in, wheels, and dropped it on the ground and moved it over off the curb so the road crown could let the remainder of that oil dribble into the hub. It must have worked because I made it to the hangar. The parking brake does suck though. I hate that I can't leave the hubs on to yank a drum as I'm unsure how much endplay that bar now has. Surely it's more than it was before. Problem is that the right side has more slack than the left side. I'm apprehensive about just blindly cranking that parking brake cable without eyes on those bars on both sides, I fear I'd pull on one and have the shoes over-adjusted via the parking brake cable that way.

@Supercharged111 ,

Nice job on the detailed repair report - even remotely I was able to follow along as if I was
working shoulder-to-shoulder w/you. Sounds like you set the bearing endplay with the
same mindset that I did mine after watching the Timken video for comprehension. Good!
Same with the shoes kissing the drum's friction surface. FWIW, I've found that any tighter
than that = more heat generated + the pedal doesn't get much firmer. The sweet spot
is just kissing/just audible, and you will get the full braking effect as designed without
excessive drag/heat.

****

The following couple of comments are to address the residual concerns you had after the
repair.

1) Wheel bearing lubrication way out on the ends of the axle tubes. I am of the opinion
that the bearings do see some 90wt during normal driving, more so during turns than
strictly straight ahead. But at the same time I like the fact that you prelubed those
replacement bearings so that they were lubed when they took the weight of the vehicle.
(I did the same -- the PSI loading on those tapered rollers, even with optimal setup, is up there.)

By the same token, (both seals looked to be matching National, & assuming that they were
the same age/mileage, same condition going in, both sides had the rubber edges lubed during
installation, etc) ...if you look at the first attached photo it looks like there's more oil sloshed
at the left bearing than the right bearing? And if I had to guess why, looking at my own
driving style I know that when I'm going around the Interstate cloverleafs it's me turning
right 100 times out of a 100? And the left turn exits from one interstate to another are very
rare, at least where I drive.

Or, my observation could be based on something as simple as the left seal was installed dry
but the right one was prelubed during assembly? Just a guess, but both seals do show signs
of at least some 90-wt seepage, so I installed new seals & fresh gear oil & called it good.

2) Parking brake adjustment without being able to visually verify proper operation.

A) First of all, it *is* possible to get the parking brakes misadjusted. The vast majority
of the time some previous mechanic went straight to adjusting the parking brakes at the
Equalizer without checking/adjusting the primary wear adjuster (starwheel) FIRST.

Instead of writing more pages & risking 'TLDR', it's just suboptimal to have the rear brake
shoe 'at rest' position set by the parking brake cable adjustment. (!) Given this, the
following is written based on the assumption that the drum brakes are adjusted
properly via the starwheel first.

Anyway, I'll tell you how I cross-checked my parking brake adjustment so that I was
confident that the rear brake shoes wouldn't get smoked by either the hydraulic or
mechanical systems post repair.

B) In the 2nd photo you can see what the spring looks like at the end of each parking
brake cable. IF the ratio of spring strength vs internal cable drag is the same as a new
cable, then these 2 springs have authority over the cable assemblies and will assure
that the released cables will no longer prevent the brake shoes from returning to
the starwheel at-rest (ie: hydraulic only) shoe position. (And this is why I replaced
both L & R parking brake cables, to make sure that I didn't have the single remaining
old cable stick & risk smoking the shoes.)

C) After installing both new cables & interconnecting them via the Equalizer, I wasn't
sure about the parking brake balance between L & R? But during the adjustment process,
I discovered that (on my truck) they both moved, but the left rear seemed to be engaged
first? No problem thought, for while the left cable simply quit moving, the right cable
seemed to speed up, and once the parking brake pedal got 3-4 clicks in, both brakes were
firmly set.

In English, it doesn't matter which brake gets set first, for they both end up at the same
overall tautness within a click or 2. And if the parking brake pedal returns home with intent
when you pull the release, the system is friction-free & working as advertised.

D) After all that table-setting, the way you work through both rear brake systems
(hydraulic & mechanical) is as follows:

* Front tires safety chocked, both rear tires in the air. Parking brakes off.
* First, verify that the rear shoes on both sides are adjusted for the light kiss via the starwheel. Adjust if necessary using access hole in backing plates.
(Cross-check: Afterwards, both tires can be spun by hand easily w/barely audible drag.)
* Set the parking brake, and verify that both wheels are locked by 3-4 clicks. Can't turn either tire by hand.
(If not, then adjust at the Equalizer until corrected.)
* Pull the parking brake release. Pedal returns to the home position by itself with intent. Both tires can once again be turned by hand.
* Lower the truck, verify parking brake will hold truck on a hill in neutral, & enjoy.

To summarize, like you I didn't like the fact that I couldn't visually verify that the parking brakes fully
released after being applied. But because I was able to verify proper release through the way the
brakes *behaved*, I confidently returned the truck to service after the rear brake renewal.

Note: Given the affordable prices of new AC/Delco cables (HERE) I didn't even entertain the thought of trying to
lube up the single remaining original cable. I simply replaced them both, along with a new equalizer &
the connector to the front cable, and it has worked flawlessly since.

And since I live in the rust belt, I am actually using them all the time. And when the truck is sitting
Alert as hot backup, I am starting it weekly, releasing the parking brakes, moving the truck a few feet,
and then reapplying the parking brakes. (Don't want the shoes to seize to the drums, or the cables
to freeze up from disuse. A little periodic brake system exercise is the key to success!)

Up here in the rust belt, you either ALWAYS use the parking brake, or NEVER use the parking brake.
It's the only way I know how to avoid the 'seized/frozen brake cables at the worst possible time' scenario.

By the way, as I was sneaking up on the 3-4 click adjustment, the parking brakes were not good/not effective.
You really have to get into those cable release springs for everything to straighten up & start working like new.

Apologies for the length, but there's a fair amount of technique in order to get both the hydraulic & mechanical
rear brake systems to interoperate properly.

If you get a chance to revisit this, give this a whirl & let us know if you achieve parking brake joy.

Safe travels --

 

[Supercharged111]

Since your last post I don't think I've even looked at the truck. Climbing back into this thread I'm reminded that my parking brake adjustment SUCKS. The least of my worries at this point, I have a number of items to address in the coming months with this beast. First of which is the front brakes. Whenever they get good and hot it'll shake the crap out of the steering wheel. What's odd is that I get zero pulsation in the pedal. I went with the same Raybestos Element3 pads I put on my 1500. They're not an aggressive pad, but they're head and shoulders above your over the counter semi metallic pad. I like the response and feel of them in my 1500, so went with them here too. I don't want too much front brake on this truck as I typically only drive it loaded to the gills. As the truck lives in an uninsulated hangar, I fired up the torpedo and was rewarded with some very pleasant winter working conditions.

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125,000 BTUs of freedom FTW. This was helpful as 8 lug rotors don't just slip on. A similarly painful theme as what is out back. Everything was gutentight and I suspect original too but who knows. Once I got the assemblies out I was greeted with this.

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I think I want to replace those seals and I definitely want to clean all that rust out of the knuckle. Both sides look identical. So here's both assemblies after "persuading" them out of the knuckles.

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Good thing I don't have to reuse them! I had a 4# beater with me and on the passenger side I ended up swinging the thing like a baseball bat to get things started. Here's how it looked after they came apart.

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Not too shabby really. I used the press to remove the studs instead of waiting on them with a hammer.

 

[Supercharged111]

@df2x4 @kennythewelder Can we amend this lame 5 pic per post limit?

I went on to start cleaning things up. I started with the lugs.

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I think I can live with that. Next up was the hubs.

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They came out pretty nice too. Here they are with a coat of VHT chassis and roll bar paint. Gonna let them dry overnight before making them one again with some fresh rotors and those clean studs. Now I'm none too thrilled about reinstalling these bad boys.

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I had to remove them with 2 wrenches glommed together. Not sure how I should torque them on reassembly? I see the GMT800 units have holes drilled for an extension to fit through but man oh man they want a pretty penny for some used units there! Overall a terrible thing to have to service, I just thank the lucky stars this thing isn't a rotbox!

 

[Sean Buick 76]

Awe man those parking brake issue are a pain!! I dont think I’ve had a parking brake on a vehicle in my life and I’ve owned about 35 of them. Normally I cut the cable so don’t set the brake by accident and have it not release.

 

[letitsnow]

On a lighter note - even though I have never been a big Monte Carlo fan, every time that I see yours, I feel the urge to do a burnout...