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BT7 rear wheel leaking

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i was working on the aux fan today and noticed there is oil coming out of the LR wheel. i have pulled the wheel, drum and brake shoes (all wet with oil). since i replaced the o-ring on the hub assembly i assume the rear oil seal is leaking. some questions before i get started.

1) what size is the nut on the hub?
2) any trick to pull it off once i get it lose?
3) need to take out the wheel bearing (which seems good) any trick to getting the bearing and rear seal out?
4) any trick to getting it all back in?
5) also noticed i have some end play on the hub right now? normal and how much is normal?
6) think i can clean the oil out of the shoes? or best to just get new ones?

suggestions, links to videos or threads on same appreciated.
 
Drone Dog,
Sounds like you have a spun rear hub. There is good info for you in previous posts.
Plan on getting a new rear bearing, oil seal, rear brake shoes and another o-ring. Try "Bearing Mount Stick" to secure the new bearing in the hub and prevent movement.
I borrowed a slide hammer/bearing puller from Advanced Auto to remove the hub.
Don't bother with a new hub gasket. That may have been the cause of your failure. I used RTV.
Good luck.
Douglas
 
2 - 3/16" or 56mm, as John indicated. My car is a BJ8. See also record sketch for other helpful info I've learned here on the forum or from doing when I had to remove my hub...

(Forum, if any gross errors, please let me know!)
 

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  • AustinHealeySketch12.jpg
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After Tom Monaco (Tom's Toys) told me he'd replaced 80+ rear bearings, I did some measurements, demonstrating the Moss cardboard gasket to be thick enough as to prevent proper clamping of the bearing rim, thus allowing the bearing to spin inside the hub.

Tom also mentioned the heat from the spinning bearing destroys the seal.

If you follow the advice in the previous post, just using the o-ring and using rtv instead of the gasket, you should be fine against a future occurrence.
The secret is not using bearing stick - with either no gasket or one that's <.004" you'll have physical clamping of the bearing both in the center and around the periphery.

The Bentley manual describes the fit: see Sec J, p. 208 upper rt.

If you have a large enough socket, after you've removed the octagon nuts and washers - you can remove the splined hub, insert the socket between the splined hub and axle hub, put nuts on some of the studs, then tighten each gradually and you'll pull off the hub.

See:
https://www.pbase.com/stevegerow/image/158968947
 
Steve and Douglass
Thanks for the info. i do have paper gaskets on the hub. i probably put them on there when putting in new orings. guess i will pull the right side wheel and take that one out ASAP.

would not have figured this one out without the help. thanks. but i see the issue. guess you need enough sealant to keep the oil in but let the axle be tight against the bearing spacer.

Steve. not sure on the hub pulling you suggest. at the moment it seems all of my large sockets would be too deep. can't really picture it in my mind. could i leave the nut on a little and make a wood spacer or something? or use a piece of PVC pipe?

i am pretty sure when i took off the spinner on that side it was a right handed thread. i always think of it as spinning towards the front loosens the spinner. i would assume the big nut is on the same way. but maybe i am backwards. i will check the spinner before i try to take the nut off.

now just need to get a socket.... and brake cleaner for the drum.
 
AFAIK, I don't have any leaking from the rear bearings/seals; maybe my habit of torquing the snot out of the hub studs has helped crush the gaskets enough for the spacers to do their jobs?
 
So a 56mm socket is not so easy to come by. plus this is an 8 sided nut....
 
Trust Me, Drone Dog, In my opinion, do not waste your money on a 56mm socket. I did and after grounding down the edges of the socket to a perfectly square perpendicular edge, (well, more like grounded to a chiseled edge due to the lock washer having a slightly dish or beveled edge outward, further diminishing the workable surface area of the axle nut) it still did not seat firmly over the axle nut or enough to maintain a firm grip while loosening. If your axle nut is on "tight" as mine was, then forget about it! My sketch note indicating the axle nut is 'knurled' is stated for a reason. That axle nut is just too shallow for using a socket, IMHO!

Two options I know. First, Moss (or other places) sells a spanner wrench for the axle nut. BUY IT! Save on any further grief. Or, find an appropriate sized pipe wrench (and yes) you will need to modify the edges to make that work for you. BUT note that you will not use the pipe wrench in the normal, conventional sense. That is, you will need to rotate or twist the wrench sideways onto the axle nut and turn. The studs on the hub will not allow you to use a pipe wrench via normal means (and even if you could, you will no doubt start "cheezing" at the edges). Use a dremel with a grinding wheel to square off the edges of the pipe wrench (my favorite tool). The outer edges (what I will call the "teeth") on the pipe wrench must be straight and parallel to each other. (I suggest just buying the spanner wrench and be done with it). Hope this helps you.

Paul
 
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Regarding the Moss wrench - check with tech support, the only such wrench on their site is for the early BN1 spiral bevel axle. No wrench is listed for the later axles.
Healey Surgeons and BCS may have other options.

screenshot.1449.jpg
 
i did check with Moss and they say the appropriate wrench is no longer available. will keep checking.
 
Well that was sort of anti-climatic....
i thought an old water heater filament wrench might just be the ticket but was the wrong size... next i was going to weld a nut on one of my old steel c-clamps and see if i could get it tight. but before that, i figured i would give the pipe wrench a try. tightened it up, put a screw driver in behind the adjuster to keep it from opening and put a little pressure on it. the nut spun right off. So someone did not have it tight....
anyway it is out, the hub is off, (thanks Steve, socket inside a socket worked great) and the bearing is out.

Now... to put it back in.

Tips, tricks, putting in rear seal? how far to tap the new bearing in? anything?

Thanks all
 
Reassembly is pretty straightforward. You've already seen the gasket discussion. The bearing will go in most of the way easily and tightening the nut will force it the rest of the way. The nut should be torqued to 75 to 150 lb-ft per Steve's post #13.
 
DD said: "...guess you need enough sealant to keep the oil in but let the axle be tight against the bearing spacer."
The o-ring does the sealing and the sealant is there for belt-and-suspenders.

I'm a big fan of using pvc pipe fittings as seal and bearing installers:

screenshot.1452.jpg


Also the Harbor Freight bearing and seal driver set:

screenshot.1453.jpg


You can drive the seal at room temp with one of the above seal drivers - be careful it only bears on the rim of the seal.

For the bearing, the following worked for me: I heated the hub up for an hour in summer sun; cooled the bearing in my freezer; careful alignment and it should tap right in the one of the drivers. Work fast. Boiling water would work, too.
 
How about getting the hub back on the axle? any trick to getting it to slide on without damaging the seal? just grease it up and slide it on?

figured i would take a block of wood and tap it up. there is a lip back there so i am sure it will be easy to tell when it is in position.

what size is the slide in reducer above and is it the same length as the female adapter?
 
Drone Dog said:
How about getting the hub back on the axle? any trick to getting it to slide on without damaging the seal? just grease it up and slide it on?

figured i would take a block of wood and tap it up. there is a lip back there so i am sure it will be easy to tell when it is in position.

what size is the slide in reducer above and is it the same length as the female adapter?
Click to expand...

This isn't that precise...

The reducer is whatever size fits whatever that fitting was. I had to drive it in. No it's not the same length. I included it for strength, rather than hammering on the somewhat thin edge of the fitting itself.

Addendum: I dug up the pvc fittings I used on the rear hub and bearings. Without taking the car apart, not sure which goes where -- my overall point is if you go the the home store you can find a pvc fitting to drive almost any seal or bearing for very little money.

Once I mistakenly used a large socket to drive the hub-with-bearing onto the axle. I bunged up the threads for the octagon nut and had to buy an expensive thread chaser to restore them. That won't happen with pvc drivers.

An observation: Healey seals tend to be "normal" dimesions, like say, 2.25" as opposed to 2.15". So it's not that hard to find pvc fittings of the same diameter.
 
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