97F250HD

In these crazy deep snows in Virginia, my wife's horse puller 97 F250HD's (old body style) 4wd with factory manual hubs would not engage in 4wd. I determined that the right (passenger) hub was not engaging by lifting one side at a time and finding that nothing happened when I turned the right wheel back and forth. I pulled the hub cover off (three torx) this afternoon and am ashamed to say it was dry and rusty looking. I took out the snap ring on the hub but cannot get the hub to come apart. I was concerned at first that maybe it was the rust but now I am fearing that the hub may have gotten hot and seized the manual lockout hub. I dowsed it with PB Blaster and after aligning everything was actually able to get the manual hub to lock (was able to manually slide the gear onto the axle) but I'd like to get the hub out and clean and grease everything. Any ideas as to how I can persuade it? I tried the trick of putting the hub cover screws in and pulling back and forth on them but no dice. Any ideas will be greatly appreciated.

thanks in advance,

Randy

bobkyle2

hey can you pm me your email address and i can send you a big write up i have on it.... its good .... i think i still have it in my email ... if not i can email it to you tomorrow on my other computer... but its a dana service manual....

97F250HD

Bob and others, an update on removing the stubborn manual hub. Perserverence paid off along with a combination of PB Blaster (to attack the rust) followed by a couple of dowsings of WD40 coupled with screwing two of the hub cover screws into the hub and using two large pliers to put forcefully pull and push the stuck hub in and out. The final trick was to take emory paper to the rotor hub rim to get the locking hub to clear. This hub remained completely stuck for more than 12 hours and all of sudden started moving a very little.

I removed the internal snap ring and accompanying washer on the internals but am having trouble getting the gears apart but things are cleaning up nicely and moving freely so I hope to be able to clean out the rotor hub and get the thing reassembled/lubed and reinstalled tomorrow AM since more bad weather is coming in.

Seems to be a debate between grease (recommended in the Chilton manual) and a light coat of oil (either motor or ATF) - any thoughts are appreciated.

thanks,

Randy

daniel150

I have always used grease.