Front wheel bearings?

[Red beast]

I have replaced my front wheel bearings 3 times in the past 6 months. Each time i use brand new bearings, clean everything nice as far as spindle and lock nuts and such. Tons of grease, new wheel seal. I tighten the first nut up snug not too much just enough that i dont have any play new lock washer and the snug the hell out of the lock nut. I dont understand what the f is going on. I have never had this happen on a car before. I have tried differnet brands, parts houses and still have problems. My truck is a ttb dana 35 4x4 and im only running 31s. Any ideas?

 

[brinker88]

Did you replace the race as well? If you didn't, there's your problem....

 

[black_demon69]

I have replaced my front wheel bearings 3 times in the past 6 months. Each time i use brand new bearings, clean everything nice as far as spindle and lock nuts and such. Tons of grease, new wheel seal. I tighten the first nut up snug not too much just enough that i dont have any play new lock washer and the snug the hell out of the lock nut. I dont understand what the f is going on. I have never had this happen on a car before. I have tried differnet brands, parts houses and still have problems. My truck is a ttb dana 35 4x4 and im only running 31s. Any ideas?

are you packing bearings with grease or just smearing grease on outside of bearing? what kind of grease? also try tighten bearing down then spin wheel and back off nut just a little do this several times to seat bearings....

 

[ab_slack]

What mentioned already are very good points.

This is the part that stands out in my mind

I tighten the first nut up snug not too much just enough that i dont have any play new lock washer and the snug the hell out of the lock nut.

I don't know if the procedure is different for the 95 compared to the pre-90.

On the earlier ones you torque the first nut to something like 35 ft-lb and while at that torque level turn to wheel to seat it. Then back off a quarter turn and then re-torque to something like 14 in-lb (not ft-lb) which is more or less hand tight. Then rotate it just as necessary for the pin on the lock washer to go into that first nut. Then torque the lock nut to like 150 ft-lb.

Doesn't sound like you are seating it properly and/or leaving too much force on the inner nut.

The pin didn't break off the lock nut by any chance? I've heard of that.

 

[Chris_1]

Presuming you are packing the grease properly, You aren't tightening them right. The instructs in the above post are about right for manual locking hubs (the exact specs are on here somewhere - you also need to rotate the rotor while it's real tight, then back off 1/4 and tighten hand tight. Of course you would install the new races that came with the bearings since you have them right ? You can buy a handy tool for repacking bearings at the parts store for 10 -15 bucks.

 

[FritzTKatt]

New races, pack the bearings (spend the damn money on marine grease), proper rolling torque, lock-nut torque is about 225ftlbs IIRC.

As said, if you don't pack the bearing it won't actually have any grease in it = failure, without the correct torque on the inner nut, it'll wobble and make a good bearing a bad one. The grease seals are supposed to be mandatory replacement, but if they can be tapped onto the rotor with a hammer (a little grease around the mating surface for a seal/removal), and they stay in place well, then they're good.

Ever though about the seal where the shaft runs into the spindle? I can't get those locally (Jersey), and have contamination problems from deep water, but repacking the bearings or using marine grease takes care of most of that. Also, the shaft is supported on needle bearings in there, so you might want to take care of them while you're at it.

I've only had bearings start to go once, and that was from contamination, proper install will prevent failure. You shouldn't be able to blow a bearing on 31's, I haven't even through overly gratuitous use of the skinny pedal in low.

 

[Red beast]

I use the red greses tubes that fit in the small grease guns. I have a injector needle that i use to shoot grease inside the bearing after i pack them. So grease isnt the problem. Maybe i am putting too much pressure on the first nut like mentioned above. I tighten it down to seat the bearing and spin the rotor and such. Then i back it off so the rotor spins freely small snug then crank the outside lock nut down. I was having problems with the damn outside nut backing off on me before so i breaker bar those bitches on now. Ill try the methods above this time and hopefully it will work out for me. I have changed lots of bearings before and never had this problem. This is just getting silly.

 

[UrbanRedneckKid]

You do what to pack your bearings....!!??

Sent from my HTCONE using Tapatalk

 

[swynx]

Pretty sure a needle attachment for grease won't pack the grease into the bearings like a packer will.

 

[Red beast]

i pack them first then use the needle just to put extra in and make sure. im sure theres more than enough grease. im gonna try tightening them the way suggested above. thanks for the help.

 

[black_demon69]

Are you using cheap bearings or good bearings like Timken ?

 

[Red beast]

First set were national,second was napa, this one is timken.

 

[black_demon69]

First set were national,second was napa, this one is timken.

i always use timken when possible

 

[brokemechanic3000]

it seems to me the likely cause of the frequent bearing failure is a result of the bearings being tightened down too tight. Thus putting too much pre-load on them dooming it to an early death.