Pillow Block Issues
Posted: Sun Oct 18, 2009 1:49 pm
A year or so ago I was under the cargo CCKW greasing it. When I came back to the pillow block bearing, I found that the bolts had loosened up to the point of the unit almost falling off. The unit had been on there for years. As I said in another posting, these trucks can shuck some nuts and bolts like I have never seen.
Deciding that this would NEVER happen again, I invested in aircraft bolts made to be wired after installation. I had already done this to the xfer case.
Everything was fine till last Sunday night. On my way home from an nice weekend reinactment, I was cruising along at about 45 mph towing the water buffalo and about to take the exit from the highway, when all of a sudden the truck made the worst noise I have EVER heard! I slowed down immediately and stopped at the end of the ramp in a safe place. Crawling under the truck, I felt the xfer thinking that it was the problem. It was hot, but not more so than usual and just down a little on GO. OK check the driveshafts. All look OK and the Ujoints too except the ujoint going into the pillow block is at an extreme angle. It was dark so I slid in from the back and saw the wired bolts were all there and tight. The I saw it. The pillow block was fine with the mounting except the mounting plate had broken or ripped right thought one of the screw holes! It was not attached to the axle housing anymore!!!!!
After removing the 2 shafts and pillow block, I proceeded home. Next day, I took the pillow block apart. It had grease, turned freely and nothing was burned or excessively worn.
Looking at the bracket, it appears that it may have cracked previously as it had shiny areas where it broke and others not. I can only summize that the previous bolt looseness had cracked the metal and the humming along at 45 for over an hour when this occurred was just too much (along with lousy bridge dividers) for it.
The truck has almost 90,000 miles on it (60,000 by me) and I am now thinking that in the spring I will rake the cargo body off and have a professional welder weld it back on. In addition, I will have the pillow block shaft checked at a machine shop for straightness and rebuoldit with new bearings and seals.
In a couple more weeks, deuce #10 (13 total ever owned) will be coming home. It is chassis and cab and only has 2800 original miles on it. Back in the 30's and 40's, 90k miles was a lot for a truck. I am thinking that I will take # 10 and sandblast the chassis and rebuild it then transfer all the sheetmetal including the cab (because of the M32 gunmount hole in the roof) to the low mileage chassis along with the engine and retire the original chassis for parts.
A low mileage CCKW like that will last me the rest of my life with few problems.
Deciding that this would NEVER happen again, I invested in aircraft bolts made to be wired after installation. I had already done this to the xfer case.
Everything was fine till last Sunday night. On my way home from an nice weekend reinactment, I was cruising along at about 45 mph towing the water buffalo and about to take the exit from the highway, when all of a sudden the truck made the worst noise I have EVER heard! I slowed down immediately and stopped at the end of the ramp in a safe place. Crawling under the truck, I felt the xfer thinking that it was the problem. It was hot, but not more so than usual and just down a little on GO. OK check the driveshafts. All look OK and the Ujoints too except the ujoint going into the pillow block is at an extreme angle. It was dark so I slid in from the back and saw the wired bolts were all there and tight. The I saw it. The pillow block was fine with the mounting except the mounting plate had broken or ripped right thought one of the screw holes! It was not attached to the axle housing anymore!!!!!
After removing the 2 shafts and pillow block, I proceeded home. Next day, I took the pillow block apart. It had grease, turned freely and nothing was burned or excessively worn.
Looking at the bracket, it appears that it may have cracked previously as it had shiny areas where it broke and others not. I can only summize that the previous bolt looseness had cracked the metal and the humming along at 45 for over an hour when this occurred was just too much (along with lousy bridge dividers) for it.
The truck has almost 90,000 miles on it (60,000 by me) and I am now thinking that in the spring I will rake the cargo body off and have a professional welder weld it back on. In addition, I will have the pillow block shaft checked at a machine shop for straightness and rebuoldit with new bearings and seals.
In a couple more weeks, deuce #10 (13 total ever owned) will be coming home. It is chassis and cab and only has 2800 original miles on it. Back in the 30's and 40's, 90k miles was a lot for a truck. I am thinking that I will take # 10 and sandblast the chassis and rebuild it then transfer all the sheetmetal including the cab (because of the M32 gunmount hole in the roof) to the low mileage chassis along with the engine and retire the original chassis for parts.
A low mileage CCKW like that will last me the rest of my life with few problems.