Technical Wheel bearing failure

Sometimes you get a warning, smell of frying grease or smoke. I was driving to work, OT Chevy wagon on a 16 degree day. I'm maybe 2 miles from home, feel a rumble in my RF, so I turn around take the service road and keep it under 40. I hear something in the hubcap and worse grinding.

Get it home (still dark out) and the RF wheel is leaning. I need the car later, start taking it apart. The outer wheel bearing is gone, the rollers fall out of the hubcap and the race is welded to the spindle. So there I am at 7 AM whiz-wheel in hand removing the race. I used emery cloth to get the spindle back so it would accept a bearing, I had a spare rotor set up on hand. The funky part, no cotter pins... had to run for those. I made it to work by 10.

I had packed those myself, who knows how many miles back? With my Ford, after 10,000 miles I took the brakes apart, repacked the bearings.

 

I have been fortunate on cars up to this point, but have lost a couple bearings on trailers over the years. Good reminder for all of us.

 

I carry a thermal temp gun in my truck. I am paranoid about losing a wheel on the trailer. Always checking the temps. My car hauler has bearing buddies on them so I can grease at will.

 

You can use the gun to check the tire temp also, tells you if you have low pressure in that tire.

 

We had a kid working for a flight school back in the 90’s. We told him to pack the wheel bearings on a Piper Tomahawk. He proceeded to wash the bearings in the solvent tank. We weren’t watching him, he was a big boy, and he never blew out the solvent. Airplane taxied out and was gone for a few hours, came taxiing up to the hangar with all 3 wheels flopping back and forth. Wheel bearings smoked, not an ounce of grease left.

 

Thanks HRP for starting this thread. Just realized I have over 30 k on my front wheel bearings since last repack. Since I don't know what grease was used originally, I will clean all old grease from bearing, spindle and rotor. I've heard that kerosene or mineral spirits are good cleaning solutions. Any other recommendations for cleaning solutions and best wheel bearing grease to use with disc brakes would be appreciated.
Thanks, Charlie

 

15 years ago I bought a late 80s daily driver that had new rotors so I figured the bearings should have plenty of grease,a few months later I heard a noise that changed as the car went over bumps so I checked the front bearings and who ever installed the rotors lightly packed the bearings but put no grease in the hubs. New bearings and races were installed.

 

Interesting point, and I've never consciously made an effort to put much additional grease, if any, in the hubs. Thankfully I don't think I've had a problem ( that I know of!). How much additional grease should there be??

Chris

 

I learned with my gramps in the 60's, first big truck bearings, clean, inspect, repack. Learned the easy way to do dual heavy truck rear sets, without breaking them down- jack it up a bit, lay a big tin sign under the dual set and extending out a couple feet, squirt oil on the sign, let it down until it just touches. Remove the axle and outer bearing set, grab the outer tire with both hands and the whole deal will slide out on the tin sign quite easily- I was doing it when I was 10. There's actually a special jack made for that, not everybody had big tin signs lol. Don't I wish I had those big old signs now...

 

Ah yes, the greased metal trick…..I worked for 5 years as a truck mechanic doing air brakes and springs when construction was super slow in the late 70’s.We had a wheel dolly but sometimes had two trucks being worked on..The dolly made it less likely to nip a seal…Gear oil on new shoes was a money losing come back..

 

I always pack some grease just inside of the cone bearing to provide some backup lube when and if higher heat of bearing means I need help, hopefully it will melt and wick where needed. Can't hurt. My friend who was in the auto repair business thought the extra grease was a hurt to his profit margin. I was thinking of adding grease zirks to the front hubs the other day, what could it hurt? Half a pump every once in a while [to be determined]?

 

Just like @Mr48chev i was taught to never clean a bearing in solvent and NEVER spin a bearing with compressed air

I’ve always packed bearings snd filled the hub with grease .


Never understood why until working on forklifts. Raymond reach trucks use poly wheels , if you don’t pack the hub with grease the wheel will overheat and debond the poly from the hub .

the grease acts as a heat sink .


I never understood why we did this in automotive as the grease never moved out of the hub, but from what I see now it helps with heat dissipation.

 

On the ranch we had probably a hundred wheel bearings on equipment! Any time they came into the shop, my Dad would add grease zerks to the hubs. He always said grease was cheap , compared to bearing failure!






Bones

 

I am a old truck driver and I do the same thing, but you are right not many people do it.

 

I repacked the wheel bearings on the coupe shortly after I traded for it, I was told the car was a new build and when I was checking the front brakes I decided to check the bearings, the nut needed tightening and the wheel on the drivers side had some back and forth travel, when I removed the hub there was a sever lack of grease.

 

I do it every time I stop, on my trailers and motorhome. I sometimes carry my temp gun , too!





Bones

 

When I had my vintage Shasta camper I would check them every year before I went to a rally, HRP

 

Easy thing to over look, I was coming home from work pulling my work trailer at night and seen in my side mirror one axle on the trailer had flames coming from it. Sure as hell, the wheel bearings fought the good fight but gave up. They get checked on a regular basis now...

 

You have not had a wheel bearing failure until you have one on a 10,000 gal gasoline trailer. Full!

Ben

 

Many years ago I had a nearly catastrophic bearing failure. Had a strange rumble develop in my Willys while driving 5 hr trip from Bakersfield to Pleasanton rod run. Got home and started searching for the noise. Took off front hubs, perfect shape. took out Olds rear axles and of course it was the last one I looked at. The bearing was dead dry and had 3 balls holding it together. I remembered that I had dented the metal shield on the sealed bearing when installing the bearing but didn't think that mattered. Believe me it matters! If you have a bearing with a non-perfect shield, toss it.

 

As a kid, we learned to check and pack the wheel bearings on our camper trailer, every spring before our 1st outing. This spilled over into boat trailers and race car trailers. All you have to see is ONE stranded boat on a trailer with a busted off hub sitting on the shoulder to get the message.

 

I've fussed with enough OT wheels, brakes, hubs, etc. to have seen those 1/4" wide, braided copper, grounding straps on just about everything that's not an open-wheel for the last 50 years. I've been told that a static charge will build up in the wheels and tires that will arc across the bearings causing them to pit and shorten their useful life.
If there's anything to that, that may be another reason to inspect the bearings on a regular schedule.

 

I added coolant to my DD for the first time last weekend when I changed the water pump at 235K miles.

 

Need to be careful with those Berring Buddies, easy to over grease and force out the dust seal, ask me how I know, managed to do it twice.

 

it isnt. Its sold everywhere, napa, autozone, advanced auto, tractor supply, even summit, jegs, speedway etc, they all have various tubs of bearing grease. They have different types now, full synthetics, low drag etc, the world is your wheel bearing grease oyster nowadays. Its not too expensive either.

 

I repack the wheel bearings on my coupe every other year. I bought a 5 gallon pail of bearing grease at an auction for $1, twenty years ago, it was nearly full, and even has the bearing pump on it. I've been using that grease ever since, the pail is about 1/2 empty now, after all these years.
Since I'm using the same grease, I wipe off as much of the old stuff as I can, inspect the condition of the rollers, then put the bearings in the pump and feed new grease in as it forces the old grease out. When nothing but new grease comes out of the bearings, I pull them out of the pump, clean off the old grease from the outside, and cover the outside with new grease. I do put a small amount of grease inside of the hub, but not a lot. No grease inside of the cap.

That was the way I was taught when I was a teenager working at the repair shop gas station and have been doing it that way for years, its never been a problem, and I do serious miles on my stuff.

 

Well, here’s a story.
Had a front outer go out on my 49. A much younger me couldn’t wait on one and they were expensive. A local yard had a similar year truck so I robbed the bearings.
A much younger me cleaned em up. One set had a bad cage but only a couple bearings with flat spots, another had decent looking bearings, a good cage and a wore out race. So I built me a set from the best pieces. Yep, combined 3 or 4 bearings to make one.
Greased em up and on my way. Never had an issue.
Moral of the story. Don’t be like a younger me.
(Unless it’s an apocalyptic Mad Max situation)

 

I was young like you. My trick was to convert the front cable actuated drum brakes on my '36 Willys to hydraulic by getting a couple slave cylinders from some foreign car at the junk yard and adapting them to the Willys backing plate. Just one of many such creative projects that I actually survived!!

 

I had a LF bearing go on my Nova stock car in 1984. I just saw the wheel tip when a crew member jacked the car up in the pits at Islip. Loose? Naw... shot. I needed a rotor and bearing and had the ONLY disc brake Nova in the pits.

My wife just pulled into the pits with her nice and clean Olds Cutlass. I started to send her back to the garage to get the parts, thought better and went myself... greasy paws and fire suit. Good thing, it took a bit for ME to find the parts. I had my crew chief get everything ready, the 1st heat I would have to miss, I told him to tell the handicapper to put me in the 3rd... I got back and was able to get into the consi.

Odd it was the LF and not the RF which saw more abuse. Before the next race, new bearings and fresh grease, seals on both sides.