406oc.co.uk

last year i 2 new wheel bearings on the front, the passenger side one started grinding about 3 months ago, so i had it replaced by a friend of mine around 2 months ago as i did not have time to do it myself.

After around 3 weeks it was grumbling again, along with some bad rattling sounds, and when i took the wheel off near everything was wrecked, so i chalked it up to a bad job, bought a second hand hub, which i fitted a new bearing and ball joint to, as well as replacing the wishbone bushes and track rod end at the same time.

That was last monday, and on saturday night i was out driving and during a 3 point turn i heard a crack and all the rattling came back, so sunday morning, wheel off and after a quick check i can freely move the wheel back and forth AND up and down, so it is clearly from the bearing (less than a week old) but it is not as yet getting noisy or rough when turning.

any ideas?

sounds like you need to buy some good bearings
what does the place say where you bought them from?

not spoke to them yet, as the 1st time i had put it down to bad workmanship, and this time its only just happened.

is there a set torque you have to use, somebody has mentioned that it could be over tightening of the hub nut?

totaleclipse wrote:is there a set torque you have to use, somebody has mentioned that it could be over tightening of the hub nut?

Over-tightening that would be difficult. I believe the required torque setting is about 600NM, well over the measuring capability of any torque wrench I've seen. It can be measured however by working out where to stand on a breaker bar and extension tube given your body weight, but I just knock a few painkillers back then tighten it as hard as I can without breaking my tools

http://buy1.snapon.com/catalog/item.asp ... ir=catalog

will, i tightened it with that ^^ which is rated at 475nm, and then gave it a good old tug with me breaker bar, but couldn't really get it any tighter.

mjb wrote:[I believe the required torque setting is about 600NM, well over the measuring capability of any torque wrench I've seen. It

We've got one that does 15,000 Nm,
(mind you it's hydraulic), but we do have hand-operated 800 Nm jobbies too.

You would be far better doing it up approximately with a big bar / scaffolding pipe than an impact wrench of any kind IMHO.

Better still, do it up most of the way and drive it slowly to your local truck or bus garage and get them to tighten it - it only takes a few seconds.

The question I would ask would be...how did you fit the new bearings? Did you use a press to fit them or did you hammer them in?

the one that lasted a year was a combination of a big vice and some hammers and levers
the one that my mate done, and lasted 3 weeks, i have no idea,
the one that appears to have lasted 6 days i took the new hub to another mates workshop and used his press, and there was no dramas at all, old one out and new one in in 5 mins.

the drivers side one i replaced, which is still perfect and has lasted for ages was done using a vice hammers and levers, and was a complete cock to change.

Nothing else to say about that then.
You could try tightening the hub nut up a little less....I had an issue last year with a later type Fiesta, went through 4 rear wheel bearings very fast, I decide to tighten them a little less and had zero problem since.
You might like to look at the quality issue as well.