Wheel bearings.... again

[Monty O]

I need to change one of the front bearings again... getting a bit tedious now!
Has anyone else bought one of the presses off eBay? They come in at less than £100 and Im considering this, rather that taking hub to the local garage... again.
I have spare car hubs, and thought I'd fit bearings, less the drive flange as mines a van.
So, anyone gone DIY all the way?

[Jeff Turbo]

Dunno as I always nip down to my local kwik fit and they change them for me for only £10, but I would have thought a normal fly press would remove the bearings and press a new set in quite easily or something like this? http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/FoxHunter-...oAAOSw5ZBWQKGE. you also need to find out why your bearings don't last long

[Soulcharger]

I need to change one of the front bearings again... getting a bit tedious now!
Has anyone else bought one of the presses off eBay? They come in at less than £100 and Im considering this, rather that taking hub to the local garage... again.
I have spare car hubs, and thought I'd fit bearings, less the drive flange as mines a van.
So, anyone gone DIY all the way?

I bought the bearings myself and asked a garage to replace them cost be £60 in total. Normally garages don't do that sort of thing but this one hadn't got a clue where to find them.

[Doctordiesel77]

Bearings can be VERY tight, at home or on the road I use one of these http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Draper-Too...-/201167878638 and various sockets for packers, also a king size jubilee clip to hold the legs together "just in case". The little presses should do the job, most look to be a bottle jack in a frame...The press that I sometimes use is a 100 ton one, with broken gauge, so doesn't notice that they are tight, or give any clue as to how tight ;-) Warming the spindle/housing up helps ease the job & on reassembly I put bearing into freezer, warm housing, press in, let bearing warm up, then get hub out of freezer & press it in....not too horrible a job..I tried puller just to prove to myself that it would be possible on the roadside..then used it regularly as 100 ton press is a 12 mile round trip. Before assembly, get some grease & force as much as you can into the gap between the inner races...fingers are best, messy but new bearings never seem to be well lubricated...I also smother the oil seals in grease..probably a waste of time, but can't do any harm...mine seem to last well (touch giant piece of wood). Next time I do one I'll try & remember to take some photos...puller is probably used more often than a press would be & takes up less room... Mind you, the one Jeff put a link on for looks like it would do the job & is temptingly cheap..... If you do it yourself you will know that if they fail it is not due to incorrect methods ie pressing on inner race when fitting outer....
good luck
John

[Monty O]

I'm not 100% sure which bearing it is at the moment (too cold for that!)
I had a garage that charged a tenner, but wasn't happy with the workmanship (twice) so tried a local £30 garage...
So I started looking at the one Jef has linked to. At that price could recoup the money.
I had thought of the coling/warming components to assemble, but not the extra grease.... certainly worth the minimal effort..

[Doctordiesel77]

Once people know that you have a press, you might recoup very rapidly Extra grease in everything that is supposed to be greased for life always works for me...I've drilled & tapped new ball joints to add grease nipples on Maestro, Transit & VW LT over the years, always took more than one pump of gun to start inflating rubber...and one pump is a lot of grease in a tiny ball joint... I did some work at a print place years back, they had a solvent fire started by a sealed bearing that was a week old (not fitted or supplied by me fortunately)...

[Monty O]

I've often contemplated the of grease nipples- everything that moves on my Triumph has one! The sealed for life stuff has such a shorter life...

[Doctordiesel77]

Ditto my old Land Rover..have to be very careful drilling and tapping as some things have nylon bearings just behind tin cover, I dissected a dead one to see what damage I might do...6mm nipple right in the middle of the cover (ie just where they are on old Triumphs/Land Rovers) is where I got to and loctited nipple in, as metal not that thick..(and drilled upwards & used magnet to keep swarf at bay, as you may have guessed!). My next plan is grease nipples on front wheel bearings...this might take a while...dont fancy cross drilling driveshaft or hub, as it will weaken it in a place it doesn't need weakening! I'm thinking along the lines of modifying an old two piece spindle and hub to take taper roller bearings & fit nipple to spindle..then I'd have adjustable greasable and strong bearings...will be a while before any of this happens though :-) Which Triumph have you got? I'm looking after my mates GT6 at the minute...not doing as much to it as I should be though...

[E_T_V]

Bearings so long as they are the later taper roller have a long life. Over 100k miles is certainly common on the front. The earlier 2 piece bearings were usually grumbling after less than half that.

The sealed for life ones on my rover 600 have nearly 300k miles on them!

[Doctordiesel77]

I think the original ones & genuine replacements are the ones most likely to have a reasonable amount of grease in them...most likely to be taper roller as well..I've got one or two replacements that are one piece ball bearings...if I get around to it I might fit one one day, with taper roller on the other side & see just how long they last. I was talking to an ex Rover parts bloke (proper parts bloke that only needed the computer for rare parts and prices) the other week & asked how long they made one piece ball bearings, before changing to taper roller, he said he had not heard of them, all he remembered was the two piece being replaced by one piece "and that was the end of the front wheel bearing problems". So either Rover did not tell them that the improved bearings had been improved again, or the single piece ball bearings were from cheap pattern part manufacturers. Would explain why all the unipart ones I've ever seen were taper roller.

[E_T_V]

From memory (and that isn't great in my old age) the twin ball bearings went up to something like C or D reg. Then D to E reg used single piece (I assume annular contact) bearings. After E reg they moved to single piece taper roller bearings. I think the annular contact ones can probably be replaced with the later taper roller ones. The MGF/TF use the same front wheel bearings so supply isn't likely to dry up soon. The biggest issue with changing them is that they are so tight in the hub.

[Doctordiesel77]

That's interesting, it sounds as if Rover kept it quiet when they switched to rollers, the one piece ball ones that I've seem to be pattern parts, but I've never had a D or E reg. All the one piece ones are interchangeable, taper rollers are bound to be the longest lasting though...I remember rebuilding an industrial gearbox years ago, it used angular contact/ball thrust bearings, they were expensive, so I looked some taper rollers up in a catalogue, same size, but double the load rating, so should last a lot longer, the taper rollers were about a quarter of the price...I couldn't work out why they were cheaper, or why the manufacturer had used what appeared to be dearer, inferior bearings in the first place...hmmm, sounds familiar Some of the bearings seem a lot tighter than others, I guess the tolerances on the spindle & hub were a bit vague..the ones in my van come to bits very easily with the 10 ton puller , but I once bent a spindle when pressing the bearing out, didn't notice until I put it back on...very interesting angle on the wheels..the perils of the 100 ton press!.....I think every hub I've got has angle grinder gouges where other people (mostly other people anyway ) have taken the inner races off. A useful trick from the pit is, if bearing inner races are out turn a welder up high & put a ring of weld around the inside of the outer race, when it cools bearing will be keener on coming out, same trick works on inner race, but you have to do it when it is still hot. Good job they feature on MGF, if front wheel bearing stocks ran out, we would all have real problems in the not too distant future!

[g200mss #146]

On a side note it seems there were early and late drive flanges. Im assuming the early ones fit the 2 piece bearings and later fit the single piece bearings. I know this because I bought early flanges in error and they were loose in the single piece bearings. So I bought MGTF flanges which matched the late maestro flanges that came offmy maestro They were nice and tight and had to be pressed into the bearing as they should be

[g200mss #146]

I wouldnt worry about stocks of single peice bearings running out. Surely it would just be a case of going to a bearing supplier and giving them the code on the race? These bearings wont just have been designed for Rover surely. Most bearings have many uses. Ive ordered gearbox bearings for a maestro VW box from a local bearing shop before. I didnt wait for them to pop up on ebay in rover packaging

[Doctordiesel77]

Yes, the hubs are different, and so is the bore in the spindle, not sure that bearings were used in much else though, the vw gearbox ones (if they are the same as the only vw box I've ever rebuilt, which was an auto) were all off the shelf timken, 5 quid from bearing shop, 75 from vw in the 80's...nice mark up! They'll no doubt be making them for a while yet I think.... any RHP stockist can order the bearings by either application or part number, as they make most of the taper roller ones, not sure if they were ever involved in the crappy single piece ball bearings though..the nos Rover/unipart ones are less than 1/4 of the price for the same bearing (the ones I bought were anyway ). I was thinking about making a normal taper roller set up out of more or less worthless hubs & spindles that I seem to have quite a lot of..so that I could use them up & also I would guess that if I either put a grease nipple in or repacked them every time I did the timing belt they should last more than 500,000 miles, there is room for bearings bigger than a transit front wheel bearing, they usually last over 300,000 carrying a lot more weight than a Maestro. I did 850,000 on original wheel bearings in a 3.5 ton sherpa... Anything that has properly designed bearings (Old Land Rover/Range Rover, Jag, old rwd transit/sherpa/merc etc) will very rarely need the bearings replacing, anything with crappy toyown throwaway bearings (newer transits/all fwd vans/fwd cars/toyota corolla etc) will need them replacing more often than I'd like.....It will not be a financially smart move, but will save me from having to take spare bearings/removal gear or tranquilsers with me whenever I leave the country . If you ever feel the urge to learn some new swear words simply tell an old mechanic that you think that Ford were very very clever using fwd bearings in the rwd vans so that everything is all the same and you are surprised that the designers did not get an award for their fine work oh, if they've just been putting bearings in a tranny, position yourself between them & anything that could be used as a weapon...be prepared to run quite quickly.....