Vetal4
Full Access Member
- Joined
- Dec 26, 2022
- Posts
- 67
- Reaction score
- 120
- Location
- New Mexico
- First Name
- Ian
- Truck Year
- 1988
- Truck Model
- V30 Crew Cab
- Engine Size
- 350
I joined the forum recently so I guess this is my introductory post, but I also figured I would share some monumental stupidity I encountered......
Backstory, bought a 1988 V30 3+3 about 3 weeks ago, am selling my 1985 K20...needed the whole family to be able to come along, right? Find this truck in Missouri, pretty damn nice, former grass truck from SD, taken care of for the most part. 350 TBI truck. I fly out there, buy it, drive it back, no problems (kind of seems to bog at highway speeds, but have some of those issues addressed already, TBI needs to be gone through). One issue was brakes. Truck has hydroboost, stops pretty good for the most part but there is a slight pull on hard braking, and very seldom there is a pretty bad vibration in the front end on braking. I mean VERY seldom, as in I haven't figured out how to reproduce, figure its something in the front end, caliper seizing on a pin occasionally, something like that, make a mental note to address the issue.
A couple of days ago I noticed a leak form the driver's side rear drum, okay probably a wheel cylinder, let's get one and pop it on. I pull the rear drum off drum looks good, no deep grooves, plenty of meat on the shoes but every thing is cruddy. Notice hub is full of oil, okay was going to replace wheel seal anyway. Bearings look new, roll nice... didn't notice any play in the wheel when I took it off so those just need re-packed probably....WAIT WHERE IS THE OLD WHEEL SEAL? Not in the hub...did it somehow come out on the axle...nope, but on the inside of the flange was a smear of black silicon. Do people really do this, WTH? Come to think of it I didn't see the paper gasket on the flange either, just the silicon. Pretty sure it wasn't the guy I bought it off of, but the owner before him.
Well this certainly escalated into a full brake job. As I said the bearings look good, they certainly haven't been starved of...oil. I'm thinking they can be re-packed and re-used, any thoughts on this? Anybody run into this before....I'm going to be charitable and assume that maybe the person that did this was used to medium/heavy duty trucks and thought they were supposed to run in oil? Forgot the seal? I don't know. Anyway thought this story would be interesting to you....
Backstory, bought a 1988 V30 3+3 about 3 weeks ago, am selling my 1985 K20...needed the whole family to be able to come along, right? Find this truck in Missouri, pretty damn nice, former grass truck from SD, taken care of for the most part. 350 TBI truck. I fly out there, buy it, drive it back, no problems (kind of seems to bog at highway speeds, but have some of those issues addressed already, TBI needs to be gone through). One issue was brakes. Truck has hydroboost, stops pretty good for the most part but there is a slight pull on hard braking, and very seldom there is a pretty bad vibration in the front end on braking. I mean VERY seldom, as in I haven't figured out how to reproduce, figure its something in the front end, caliper seizing on a pin occasionally, something like that, make a mental note to address the issue.
A couple of days ago I noticed a leak form the driver's side rear drum, okay probably a wheel cylinder, let's get one and pop it on. I pull the rear drum off drum looks good, no deep grooves, plenty of meat on the shoes but every thing is cruddy. Notice hub is full of oil, okay was going to replace wheel seal anyway. Bearings look new, roll nice... didn't notice any play in the wheel when I took it off so those just need re-packed probably....WAIT WHERE IS THE OLD WHEEL SEAL? Not in the hub...did it somehow come out on the axle...nope, but on the inside of the flange was a smear of black silicon. Do people really do this, WTH? Come to think of it I didn't see the paper gasket on the flange either, just the silicon. Pretty sure it wasn't the guy I bought it off of, but the owner before him.
Well this certainly escalated into a full brake job. As I said the bearings look good, they certainly haven't been starved of...oil. I'm thinking they can be re-packed and re-used, any thoughts on this? Anybody run into this before....I'm going to be charitable and assume that maybe the person that did this was used to medium/heavy duty trucks and thought they were supposed to run in oil? Forgot the seal? I don't know. Anyway thought this story would be interesting to you....
