73 Travelall rear D44, wheel bearings originally greased or oiled?

[MikeInMobile,AL]

Im trying to find out if the rear wheel bearings on my 73 Travelall with a rear D44 are factory set up to be greased like the early SII D44 rear wheel bearings.
Is an inner oil seal factory installed?
This may be a no-brainer, but Im still waiting for my service manual to arrive, and I want to know if I should re-grease those bearings while doing some other stuff this weekend.
If they are factory set up to be oiled, no inner oil seal, I dont have to take them apart to check.
Do they use the Timken SET 10 bearing, same as the SII does?
Thanks.

[Sammy]

I would guess that they need to be pulled and greased. The Scout II didn't get the oiled bearings till around 77, so I imagine the T'all would be the same. There is one sure way to find out. Let me know, my donor axles came out of a 73 1110, it also has the morphodite Dana 60 5 lug rear.

[Allan E]

There's an inner seal in the 73, both in the D44 and in the D60. You have to pull the axle, although as a general rule the seal leaks and diff oil gets inside after a while.

[MikeInMobile,AL]

Thanks for the info guys.
I just got a call from a local Scout II owner. He has a 2wd SII that he's been trying to scrap after he strips it.
He wants me to come by tomorrow to see if theres any parts that I want, and pull them.
So, no wheel bearings this weekend.
Darn.
MORE IH parts in the parts pile.
Im so lucky my wife loves me, and likes IH trucks.

[gearman]

I would grease the wheel bearings regardless. The worse thing that could happen is that you greased them for no reason, and the grease will dissolve in the gear oil.

Off the subject a little, I always grease axle bearings expecially on full floaters. It takes the gear oil a little bit of time to get to all the bearings in the hubs. Better safe then sorry.

[MikeInMobile,AL]

I would grease the wheel bearings regardless. The worse thing that could happen is that you greased them for no reason, and the grease will dissolve in the gear oil.

Good idea.
Easy to do the old hand scrape packing method if its loose, but, what is the best way to grease a bearing that is already pressed on the axle?

What about using a needle tip attachment for a grease gun?

Use an auto packer?

[Dennis Bernth]

Originally posted by MikeInMobile,AL
Good idea.
Easy to do the old hand scrape packing method if its loose, but, what is the best way to grease a bearing that is already pressed on the axle?

What about using a needle tip attachment for a grease gun?

Use an auto packer?

A needle might work. An auto packer will not work, the bearing has to be off for that. There is a method shown in the service manual, pretty time consuming and tedious, but it does work. My .02 are, check the bearings well, get what grease you can in there, yank the inner seals, clean the axle tubes WELL (when you get in there, you'll see why). Then jack up the rear of the truck off center so you can overfill the diff with gear lube, fill er up, and motor on happily. There is a reason that IH removed the inner seal and let the gear lube do the deed on the bearings- it resulted in less failures. On the rear wheel bearings I've pulled, the ones that came from later rears with no inner seal were all 'yank, check out, look good, reinstall'. The 'greased' ones from earlier models all had some issues and had to be replaced, or at least they weren't perfect and I replaced them for my peace of mind. Most people didn't adhere to the maintenance schedule for repacking those bearings; the gear lube setup is much more 'install and forget'.

[MikeInMobile,AL]

Thanks Dennis,
Ill check my 72 SII service manual for the packing procedure.
One thing about the service manuals is that they cover everything so exhaustively (good) that it makes for a really thick book (not so good) thats difficult to locate specific information in unless you know the book well, which I dont yet.
Im kind of ashamed to admit that I didnt even know it covered rear bearing packing procedures, though r+r would be a given.

[John Donnelly]

And what I did.

Pulled the axles to inspect the bearings. Found I needed new SET 10's so went and got them, had them installed with new oil seals, the whole shebang.

Used a pin tip to grease the bearings.

Pulled out the inner oil seals and threw them away based on a recommendation from Mr. Scout.

Refilled differential with fresh 85-140W GL-5

Installed axles.

Drove 100 miles.

Popped out the axles and found them covered in gear oil, and grease. Just like they were when I pulled them the first time.

I wouldn't waste my time with those inner seals. DANA/SPICER ditched the idea for a reason if you ask me.

Have driven the Travelall on two heavy towing seasons now without issue, and have logged over 20,000 miles of use without a hitch. I reinspected the bearings last spring before the IH show season started, and everything was swell. Cleaned the bearings to inspect, and found no issues. I pin-greased them again just to give them a bit of lube till the gear oil could "rope" back out to the bearings.

Just my experience, YMMV.

Keep on Binderin',

John

[MikeInMobile,AL]

I do appreciate the voice of experience John.
So, from what I have gathered, the rear bearings probably werent regreased per recommended service intervals on most vehicles.
These bearings may fail, without warning, at any time, due to lack of lube.
The majority of them dont fail because the inside oil seal has gone south and allowed gear oil to infiltrate into the axle tube and lube the bearings
One problem being that when the seal fails and allows lube to the bearings, it also circulates all the years of accumulated axle tube trash through the bearings, possibly causing premature (30 years of service is premature?) bearing failure.
And, yes, the bearing set for the SII D44 is the same for the T/all D44, a Timken SET 10.
Thank you gentlemen.
You have answered all of my questions.