So when did steel wheel hubs become rare?

I've got a 1992 pete that we're slowly putting to use, I bought it as a "project". Anyways, front steers and three out of the four drives are all pilot hub wheels. Drivers rear is budd/ ball seat. There's nothing wrong with the budd hub, I'd just like the truck to be all the same, so I made a little trip to the junkyard today.

They had a whole great big tub with probably 30 hubs in it. The only steel ones in it, were ball seat ones (and there was only two of those). All the pilot ones were aluminum. We had to go for a cruise around the yard until I saw one laying on the ground by a truck. And evidently all I work on is old obsolete, heavy stuff, because I'll admit, I didn't even know they used aluminum for wheel hubs.

How in the world do you drive races in and out and not ruin the seats on the aluminum ones? I was talking about it at the truck parts store, and he said they have guys split them all the time putting in new wheel studs. I could see them being easy to split also with someone getting a little carried away with the big air gun putting on wheels/ tires.

Wouldn't it be a lot easier to spin a race in the aluminum ones? I did notice the aluminum ones all had spacers in them for between the bearings, I suppose that's so they don't crush or push the aluminum on the lip on the bearing/ hold tolerance with the bearings?

I'm sure it saves a little weight doing the aluminum hubs, and the truck parts guys said they sell a bunch of them, but I guess that wouldn't be the place I would have thought of to save weight. I guess I'd rather have steel- I'm buying a permit most of the time anyways, and don't care that much what I weigh.

On aluminum hubs I shrink the races with weld, and heat the hub to 300 degrees to drop the races in without pounding. I believe the aluminum hubs are .003-.004" tighter than an iron hub.
Spacers for the races? Could be that somebody sleeved the bore with a steel ring, I've never seen that.

My thoughts would be that if you are hauling heavy the steel ones would hold up much better.

I thought aluminum hubs were mainly for shaving weight cause it certainly wont be a cheaper part

RZucker said:

On aluminum hubs I shrink the races with weld, and heat the hub to 300 degrees to drop the races in without pounding. I believe the aluminum hubs are .003-.004" tighter than an iron hub.
Spacers for the races? Could be that somebody sleeved the bore with a steel ring, I've never seen that.

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Those were probably all conmet preset hubs , use the correct bearing and races pit the spacer inbetween bearings and crank the nut down hard and your done .

Theweldor said:

My thoughts would be that if you are hauling heavy the steel ones would hold up much better.

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Seen plenty of aluminum hubs on heavy haul rigs with no problems.

ConMet makes most all aluminum hubs for steer, drop axle and drive axles. Like RZ said run a bead around the races and they will damn near fall out. You can heat the hub or put
the new races in a freezer and those will slid right into place Those aluminum hubs are real tough, as far as splitting one installing wheel studs-never heard of that problem.
But studs should be installed with a press and the stud coated with a small amount of anti-seize. Hell I just converted two aluminum ConMet hub pilot hubs to stud pilot for my
project Mack, using them on the steer axle. But Hub pilot is the only way to go, way less problems with studs.

Two hole steel wheels 70lbs
Five hole steel wheels 62lbs
Aluminum wheel 51lbs

RZucker said:

Seen plenty of aluminum hubs on heavy haul rigs with no problems.

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Likewise , all the tractors i used to care care of all plated for 180k had all aluminum hubs also , i never did anything special changing races or studs , was just a little more careful getting old races out , set hub upside down on drum and smack new studs in , i personally never had a problem. Tire guys gun or sumingthing messed up one time and smoked all 4 drive hubs and 8 rims after a complete tire change and they came loose the next morning early in the day .

Here's a picture of one of the spacers that were in a lot of the hubs. They must be the preset things that walkerv is talking about. Its got some frost on it from this silly cold weather we've been having, it was sitting in the back of my truck.

Stemco and their preset bearing pre-load. It's ok until the bearings have a few miles on them and the seals start leaking. I throw those in the scrap bin and go back to the two nut/lock washer
set-up. I keep lots of new spindle nuts and washers on hand. But one great use for that spacer and the steer axle spacer is it makes a great support for holding objects in the press.
Once the bearings and races have some wear that pre-load spacer becomes useless.

If set PROPERLY is nothing wrong with the old Twin nut lock ring setups. Personally I hate Crush sleeves, waste of steel.

crane operator said:

Here's a picture of one of the spacers that were in a lot of the hubs. They must be the preset things that walkerv is talking about. Its got some frost on it from this silly cold weather we've been having, it was sitting in the back of my truck.

View attachment 191940

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Yep, looks like a crush sleeve, same as a pinion’s, just bigger.