M35A3 CTIS Hub Seal Problems

[glcaines]

While rebuilding one of the hubs on my M35A3, I discovered that one of my CTIS hub seal retainers was bent and battered. This was likely the cause of the seal failure. This is the retainer that holds the quad o-ring seal and each hub has two. It appears that someone in the military beat on the seal retainer in an effort to drive the outer roller bearing race out of the hub and either didn't succeed, or did succeed in removing it and then re-installed the damaged retainer ring. There was also a small amount of damage to the inner surface of the hub itself. Someone in the Army really did a number on it. I was able to grind the roughness on the inner surface of the hub and polish it with emery cloth.. I used Permatex Right Stuff to seal the hub seal rings to the hub and pressed the bearing races back in. According to the TM I needed to wait at least 12 hours prior to re-mounting the hub. I've attached some photos showing the damage to the hub seal retainer. I have now reassembled everything. Unfortunately, I had to leave to work in China for 1 week so I got behind schedule. I still haven’t hooked up the CTIS yet. I need to rebuild the CTIS wheel valve before re-installing it.

[deadline]

Why even hook up the CTIS? Its more of a PITA (your tire are almost guaranteed to deflate) and unless you air down the tire frequently its not doing anything useful.

 

Do you plan on PMing your truck frequently to keep the system working?

[glcaines]

Actually, the CTIS is fairly dependable. The problem with losing air on the M35A3 is normally the rubber grommet between the valve stem and the wheel. It ages, cracks, and the nut gets loose. Also, occasionally the O-ring sealing the two halves of the two piece Michelin wheel will leak, but usually it's the grommet.