Re: Front hub bearings

[Bill Putnam]

Has anyone experienced or heard of front hub bearings failing catastrophically? I am running original style ball bearings in my front hubs, and race occasionally. In my experience with more modern cars (e.g. MG TD and MGB ) the wheel bearings get noisy and have excessive play long before failing completely. I did crack test the front spindles and found one cracked. A new spindle was machined and installed. I am careful when installing the bearings in the hubs to make sure that they are the right way around-often ball bearings take thrust in one direction and not the other. But I'm curious as to why the tapered bearing conversion is so common. As an aside, I'm convinced that one of the reasons I own an old MG is so that I can lie awake in bed at night worrying about all the different ways the car can break... and having a background in Mechanical Engineering only adds to the variety of potential component failures and failure modes. Mark, hope to see you on the track this weekend. Bill Putnam TB 0597

> Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2002 16:12:43 -0500 > From: "mark heathman" mmheathman@msn.com> >Subject: Re: Wheel Bearings > >WE tried the tapper roller bearings with the spacer... >With that concern and the the added leverage caused by the >bearings being

futher apart we went back to a roller bearing >with a distance piece machined for propper length, all then >fit nicely on the spindle. You can also get from bearing >houses a thrust ball bearing. They are pricey, but worth the >added security at the apex of a hard corner

> Mark TC5707

http://www.powercom.net

[CFritz7001@aol.com]

Bill, I've had ball-type wheel bearings fail suddenly (perhaps catastrophically, depending on how you definet hat) twice on my TC. The first time, it was the original factory bearings which gave up the ghost. The second failure was with the bearings installed to replace the originals. I THEN discovered that the 2nd set of ball-type bearings were NOT ones designed to live with both axial and radial loads, which is an ESSENTIAL characteristic for wheel bearings!!! It is very easy to install the wrong ball-bearings; they look just like the right ones and fit perfectly!! The hitch is that the wrong bearings have a very short service life. By contrast, (asI understand it) taper roller bearings are inherently able to withstand BOTH axial and radial loads, so it's almost impossible to buy the "wrong" bearings. You can still mess up by installing tapers improperly, etc., but the design is not going to cause them to do a nasty to the inside of your hubs, or to your stub axle by way of premature failure fron axial loads. Tapers are also more readily available and usually much cheaper than the "correct" ball-type bearings. 'Nuff said?? Regards, Carl Fritz TC # 6756 (Betsy) VA # 2009 S (Abigail) Gainesville, Florida