Hot Rod Forum banner

wheel bearings and breaks

1K views 13 replies 5 participants last post by  Ray Bell 
#1 ·
how often should i repack my wheel bearings... also i just changed my breaks and my car dosnt stop as good as with the old ones the old ones were ceramic and the new ones are organic its the difference in the pad isn't it...
 
#3 ·
rtyauch301 said:
how often should i repack my wheel bearings... also i just changed my breaks and my car dosnt stop as good as with the old ones the old ones were ceramic and the new ones are organic its the difference in the pad isn't it...
More info would help with a diagnosis. What kind of car would be a good start
 
#5 ·
as the rotors are hard to come by they weren't replaced but were turned don't know how many more times i can getaway with that though it is on a 1970 Pontiac Catalina changed the breaks about a week ago but it still seems like they don't grab as good as the old one's it is my dd has about 300 miles since i changed them... was just wondering about the bearing packing iv done mine twice this year seems like the driver side needed it the grease was starting to bake replaced the bearings on that side this time to.....
 
#6 ·
I let one go too far last week... and it caught me out on a weekend...

I wasn't near any big towns, so I finished up having to hitch-hike seventy miles or so to get the bearing. I had a workshop at a friend's place I could use.

The brakes were fine, though the pads had started to wear in a tapered fashion. That will have cost them some life.

Please, guys, try to remember that b-r-e-a-k means to smash something. Car brakes are b-r-a-k-e-s.
 
#7 ·
I had the misfortune to have an Omega (X-body Nova clone) front wheel bearing go out on me- it spun the inner race on the spindle so bad that I had to cut it off the spindle! Totally welded itself on. Made a mess of the spindle, but the car wasn't long for this earth, so I dressed it w/a mill bastard and installed a set of bearings. Drove it like that until the end. Young, broke and stupid.
 
#8 ·
Oh yes, that old trick of welding the inner cone to the stub!

I heard (and felt) mine going last week and, as mentioned, I was near a friend's place. So I phoned him and headed there. It was about six miles, I guess, and about half way, as I was driving slowly and wondering why the car behind wouldn't go round me as I went slower and slower, it started to squeal on me.

I stopped, and even then the idiot behind stopped behind me! I furiously waved him to go by me and finally he did, then I went on, no more squealing.

What I think happened is the cone of the outer race had started to spin on the stub. When I stopped it welded itself there and then no further noise came from it. Yes, I had fun getting it off, yes the angle grinder tidied up the stub.

I've had it happen twice before with trailers. They're the worst because you never know until too late that something's amiss. A wheel assembly came right off one day, the other time I was there for an hour and a half with hammer and chisel getting that outer cone off the stub. My arms ached for a week over that.
 
#10 ·
also thought just worries me my friend had his wheel come completely off of his caprice a few months ago due to lack of maintenance i think that was just an odd case of ignoring the symptoms though... but regardless i don't wanna get that far he had to replace the spindle replace the rotor and iv been packing mine 1-2 times a year but wasn't sure if it needed to be done sooner
 
#11 ·
rtyauch301 said:
also thought just worries me my friend had his wheel come completely off of his caprice a few months ago due to lack of maintenance i think that was just an odd case of ignoring the symptoms though... but regardless i don't wanna get that far he had to replace the spindle replace the rotor and iv been packing mine 1-2 times a year but wasn't sure if it needed to be done sooner
At 2X a year, you are in the 99.999th. percentile AFA good maintenance goes! At once a year, even, you will never have a problem- ever. You'll see any problem before it gets to the "terminal" stage. And good job.

Ray, X2 on the trailer bearings! I've never owned a boat trailer, but while coming back from the coast, a buddy and I had people frantically waving at us, turns out the trailer bearing had gone out from all the dunkings while putting in/taking out, and the wheel was trailing smoke- BAD.

We unhooked the trailer. I stayed w/the boat and trailer, he rode back and got the wherewithal to fix it. Made for a L O N G day.

Moral of the story: Preventative maintenance makes all the difference.
 
#12 ·
I've also had instances with wheels on trailers... but to recount the whole four occasions of my problems:

1. Wheel bearing failed after dust cap went missing. I was a few miles out of town when I learned, towed the trailer to town, bought bearing, replaced on side of road. That was the one with much hammering to be done.

2. One night I delivered an engine, the trip had been about 200 miles, when I dropped it off the friend to whom I'd delivered it noticed that all five wheel nuts were almost at the end of the threads on one hub! I suspect sabotage, it could have been nasty! To be honest, I don't know how it stayed on that long with the nuts loose.

3. Catastrophic bearing failure. I had run out of fuel between towns, I run on LPG and should have had petrol backup, but the fuel pump wouldn't kick in when I changed over, so I slept the night in the car about five miles out of town.

In the morning I waved down various people asking if they could hitch up to the rope I'd put on the front of the car and tow me into a place I could get fuel. Someone eventually did, and rounding the last corner into town I heard bangs and bumps behind me. In the mirror I saw a wheel heading for one of the houses and the trailer dropped on the left side.

Very fortunate that time, I found a pair of brand new hubs and bearings at a trailer show that had been taken off a trailer which had been delivered with the wrong stud pattern. This was after I'd changed over to 4-stud wheels to match my Nissan tow vehicle.

4. Those four studs must have been overworked! I had this load on:




Well, actually there was a stack of other stuff as well. After loading on the Poly and the truck gearbox, and the complete Hemi 6 engine, I stripped the heads off the Poly and left them where I was staying. Then I loaded two 5-speed gearboxes off Peugeots, two differentials, a bunch of magazines in boxes and some other stuff, the trailer was packed about 3' high.

I had to meet a friend 300 miles to the north to offload the truck gearbox and flywheel etc, but just before I reached him I had that old (now-) familiar bump-graunch sound come up at about 60mph, looked in the mirror and saw the right hand wheel heading for the opposite side of the road and so on.

All four wheel studs had broken off, I assume the wheel must have loosened or something.

Three hours later I was on my way again, new wheel studs, new U-bolts and a wheel checked for tightness.
 
#13 ·
Generally wheel bearing failure is due to improper packing or a missing dust cap..
Packing the bearings is a good idea anytime you have to remove the bearings for other maintenance.
Trailer bearing fail more often because the wheels are small and turn very fast compared to a car wheel.
If the bearings are not packed properly they will fail quickly
 
#14 ·
Originally posted by T-bucket23
.....Trailer bearing fail more often because the wheels are small and turn very fast compared to a car wheel.
If the bearings are not packed properly they will fail quickly
Not mine, I usually run the same wheels as on my car... and often I use light truck tyres on those wheels as well, so they're an 85 aspect ratio rather than a 70.

But maintenance is the key. I'm sometimes pretty slack with my maintenance.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top