Source of noise found.

[Nick Shepherd]

The car has been growling a little bit the last couple of days, sort of rhythmic, slow frequency, can feel it through the floor and it happens mainly when the power is off and stops when the brakes are applied.

Many of you will have spotted what it is already but, I thought I'd eliminate everything simple first so I was doing the brake pads and checked the front left wheel for play and it wobbled a fair bit, finally got the cone washers to release and here's what I found underneath:

It's a little hard to see in that pic but the flats of the 54mm nut are awfully sharp and jagged because

That has been flapping around. The edge of the bearing housing was the first thing out, before I can even get the nut off. I don't think this is going to be pretty.

 

[Chris]

Well as long as the hub casting is OK then everything else is replaceable.

But what IS that debris?

2 nuts
1 thrust washer
1 tab washer.

It's none of that. The you are into the outer bearing. It looks like some sort of peeled steel off something.

Chris

 

[Nick Shepherd]

Well as long as the hub casting is OK then everything else is replaceable.

But what IS that debris?

2 nuts
1 thrust washer
1 tab washer.

It's none of that. The you are into the outer bearing. It looks like some sort of peeled steel off something.

Chris

It's the bearing race outer edge. it seems to have dismantled itself rather comprehensively. I'm just off out as I don't seem to have a 54mm socket that I thought I had.

New bearing, lock nuts, tab washer and little cap ordered - Milners as a stopgap but a full service of the axle with Toyta bits has moved up the 'To Do' list by a few spaces.

I'm gutted as the lovely new 31x10.5 ATs I ordered are sitting at Tawse tyres waiting to go on. Still, I dare say they would have had one wheel fewer to fit to if I'd tried driving up there today

 

[Chris]

Shame you are not a Lincomb. There will be a bucketful of 54mm sockets there. Just a note on those, if you buy a nice fancy proper socket, it probably won't fit the Milner nuts. A simple bog standard box spanner will though. Their nuts are sort of radiused and unless you attack them with the grinder, they simply won't go in the socket. I wonder if the thrust washer is missing. Make sure you order that. It's not on your list I see. It goes between the bearing and the first nut.

Chris

 

[Nick Shepherd]

Shame you are not a Lincomb. There will be a bucketful of 54mm sockets there. Just a note on those, if you buy a nice fancy proper socket, it probably won't fit the Milner nuts. A simple bog standard box spanner will though. Their nuts are sort of radiused and unless you attack them with the grinder, they simply won't go in the socket. I wonder if the thrust washer is missing. Make sure you order that. It's not on your list I see. It goes between the bearing and the first nut.

Chris

Back with a needlessly fancy socket

Should the nut be tremendously hard to shift or am I looking at a full clean to find out why it won't budge with a 2' breaker bar?

 

[nivapilot]

Nut shouldn't be hard to shift at all, sounds like your bearing has moved and jammed???

 

[Nick Shepherd]

It turned out to be a bit epic, the bits of bearing had left some deposits on the thread so it needed a certain amount of abuse with a dremel, a cold chisel and a drift to get the outer nut off. The socket just fits into the hub, I'm talking a slightly hotter day and it wouldn't fit. It needed some adjustment to bring the points of the socket a bit nearer the front so that it would grip the nut though:

This:

Becomes this:

Once the nuts were off the hub started throwing up the bearing, here are all the bits and the thrust washer (which also looks pretty second hand):

I'm sure they shouldn't have those facets on them:

The rear bearing looks and feels fine:

And the inside of the hub doesn't look like it's suffered too badly, it still looks cast rather than bead blasted:

The axle stub had corrosion on rather than damage, a go over with some 400 grit seems to have sorted it out, hopefully it has because the hub's going back on it once the bits arrive.

I think part of the issue may have been that all the grease I scraped out was ordinary yellow grease. I'll be repacking with Moly.

 

[adrianr]

Good job fella.

 

[Cptsideways]

I think thats what you comprehensively fooked

 

[Nick Shepherd]

Here's praying that it's the only thing, I was worried that it was a propshaft or a CV joint.

Wheel bearings are about the cheapest, least-pain-in-the-arse, non trivial possibility. I'd have been happier to find a stone behind the brake cover plate but this will do fine

 

[Dave Docwra]

Hi,Maybe a silly question, did you remove the inner bearing from hub?

 

[Nick Shepherd]

Hi,Maybe a silly question, did you remove the inner bearing from hub?

Not yet but I've ordered a new one so I'll be doing it tomorrow. No point in risking some swarf in the old one after cleaning it all out.

 

[ajnabi]

...
I think part of the issue may have been that all the grease I scraped out was ordinary yellow grease. I'll be repacking with Moly.

Nick,

Molybdenum Grease for the CV joint.
Lithium Base Multipurpose Grease for the Bearings

IQ

 

[Nick Shepherd]

Will do

 

[Andrew Prince]

Phew, that was caught in the nick of time - well done!

The thrust washer didn't look too bad from the pic - they wear that groove quite quickly from new it seems. No harm putting a new one in though

As IQ said, no moly grease in the wheel-bearings.

 

[Nick Shepherd]

I know, I was havering over it as I didn't want to get into taking the hub off, I really have to fight these urges to be lazy about good maintenance.

The thrust washer is in the right shape but the tab is a bit mashed and the groove is badly galled on one side. The new one is definitely going in

 

[Nick Shepherd]

All finished.

I ended up having to file the threads in again on the bottom of the hub spindle, the dead bearing left some of itself mashed in there which stopped the lock nuts from catching. The bearing casing from the destroyed one was in a pretty poor condition, the inner was fine but I bashed it out and replaced it anyway.

Just drove up to get new tyres and felt the hub when I got back and it is exactly as warm as the other side so it seems to have worked. I went with the Landtank 10lb method as used by a considerable number of people on Mud to set the preload and it seems very efficient.

 

[Ecoman]

You definitely got your moneys worth out of them

Glad you found the culprit and before it did damage too

 

[Nick Shepherd]

You definitely got your moneys worth out of them

I wish I had, I've only done a few hundred miles

I think that I've turned a corner with the car, as far as I know now the heavy spannering is over, it's just maintenance and cosmetics from now on until I start with the mods.