Ok so I just wanted to add a bit of info that I had to suffer through in hopes that no one else will.
In building my 1970 Bronco, I bought a Core Dana 44 front axle and spent my life savings on a new Yukon Grizzly Diff, 4.56 Ring and Pinion, all new bearings and chrome molly axles. I had new spindles, axles, warn manual hubs and installing the Wilwood superlite 6 piston brakes. When I went to assemble the front spindle and hubs I ran into some issues.
1. I had to use emery cloth on the spindles to get enough clearance to install the bearing/hub/rotor without having an issue. The clearance was .0005" measured by my calipers. It kept hanging up with the slightest miss-alignment.
2. I torqued the inner nut to 50 ft lbf spin the rotor, back it off then repeat to seat the bearings, leaving 1/4 turn backed off from the final 50 ft lbf. rotor spins like it should.
3. Placed washer onto inner nut, aligned hole on washer, installed outer nut torqued to 90 ft lbf, rotor got very hard to move. Removed outer nut, discovered that pin on inner nut was longer than washer and had mushroomed out at the head. Took a Dremel tool with a fine carbide ball on the end of it to grind down the mushroomed pin head so I could remove washer and disassemble inspect then reassemble.
3. Again after installing the new hub/rotor, went thru the same procedure in #2 then placed the washer onto the inner nut, aligning the pin with a washer hole. Tighten outer nut to 90 ft lbf. rotor got stiffer but still turns.
4. Installed new Warn manual lockouts, they go in ok, used a screwdriver to prop the axle out as far as it would go, but when I tighten down the small screws, the rotor got incredibly hard to turn. Hmmm.
5. Disassembled, the warn lockout and then the outer nut to find that the washer had rotated out of the slot. Realigned it and tightened the outer nut again with same result. I Discovered that I had to rotate the spindle so that the slot was most upright position, it had been at 90 degrees, with the slot up this allowed gravity to keep the washer notch in the slot. Repeated all 5 steps above and everything works fine now.
It seems that the locking washer has enough play in it the without gravity pulling it down into the slot on the spindle it will spin and take the inner nut with it. Just a foot note for others that may be having issues. Also check the pin on the inner nut to make sure it does NOT protrude past the washer, that will cause you problems during disassembly. I would also recommend trying the old bearings onto a new spindle to check the fit, if they are at all tight go get your emery cloth and plan on 20-30 min on each spindle, do not apply allot of pressure just movement around the bearing mounting surfaces. Also hitting it with 500 grit sandpaper as a final sand will eliminate sanding marks. I hope this helps someone else save a few hours fighting with all new parts assembly.
