Ford Super Duty

Front End Service

 

2004 F250 4x4 XLT Sport Crew Cab 5.4L 

 

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Click Here for a PDF version of this article

 

 

I took time to do some front end service on my truck and here's a few pics.

 

At close to 100k miles, I decided to grease my front wheel bearings through the ABS sensor hole, as discussed in these threads on FTE:

Greasing Your Main Wheel Hub Bearings

For Those Greasing Their Front Wheel Bearings

 

While I was in there I also did the following:

4x4 auto locking hub service

Greased the caliper slide pins

Greased the needle bearings

 

 

All of the pictures in this article are of the driver's side.

 

More details of the disassembly & assembly can be found in my ball joint article here:

2004 F250 Ball Joint Replacement

 

 

First, jack up the truck and remove the tire.  Then remove the brake caliper, pads, bracket, and then the rotor.

 

Note that if you aren't going to grease the needle bearings, then there's no need to take it any farther apart.  You can just bend the tab up on the dust shield, and skip down to removing the ABS sensor. 

 

Next remove the 4x4 hub, snap ring, and thrust washers.

 

 

Disconnect the ABS wiring and then remove the wheel bearing assembly & dust shield.

 

 

Now its time to grease the wheel bearings through the ABS sensor hole.  I placed a rag around the end of the bearing (where the needle bearing is) and scraped most of the dirt and grime from around the ABS sensor.  Don't want that to end up in there with the bearings!

 

Here's the sensor 

 

Sensor removed 

 

 

You can get by with using a small funnel or any other means to get grease into that hole.  SpringerPop on FTE came up with this little adapter which makes the process super easy and clean.

 

Here's the original thread concerning the adapter

 

I had a machinist friend of mine make one for me.  It works like a charm. 

 

 

Before submitting the drawing to the machinist, I took the original hand drawn sketch from FTE and drew it up in Autodesk Inventor.  

** again, credit goes to SpringerPop for the design of this adapter! **

 

 

Insert the adapter into the hole and hit it with a few pumps from the grease gun. 

 

 

I used Valvoline Dura Blend grease for this as it meets the NLGI #2 Lithium Complex EP grease specs.

 

 

Next its time to grease the needle bearings.  I used the same Valvoline Dura Blend grease for this. 

 

 

While I had it apart I replaced the yellow o-ring. 

 

 

Now its time to grease the caliper slide pins.  Pretty simple -- remove the pins, use brake parts cleaner to clean the pin & the hole, grease the pins, and re-install everything.

 

 

Here's the grease I used

 

 

 

Next I finished re-assembling everything, repeated the entire process on the passenger side, and that was that.

 

 

Questions or Comments?  Email jmray@frontiernet.net