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Spitfire Front wheel bearing seal???

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N

nomad

Yoda
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Don't have a manual for a spitfire but am wondering if the early felt front wheel bearing seals are supposed to be treated with anything before they are installed. Oil?? Grease??

Kurt.
 
Some of the books say to oil them and squeeze out the excess oil. But I put them in dry on my TR3, seems to work fine. The main thing IMO is to keep grease or oil from getting on the brakes, and adding oil to the seal seems counterproductive.
 
Thanks, think I'll soak them in 90wt before a good squeeze out. Considering the condition of the disc's a little oil can't hurt!


Kurt.
 
nomad said:
Considering the condition of the disc's a little oil can't hurt!
Click to expand...
Rusty brakes will still stop the car. Oily ones won't ...
 
I typically oil them and then squeeze/blot the excess out as Randall mentioned in his first post.
 
Disc Rotors have no wear on them but plenty of rust and rust pit's. I'm sure i won't leave enough oil in them to cause any harm. I've had 90wt running out of rear drums before I even really noticed a braking problem.

Kurt.
 
I agree. It's actually pretty common for folks to not notice rear brakes that don't work; but front brakes are a lot more important.

Try stopping the car with the handbrake some time, you'll see what Andy and I mean.

And the least little bit of oil on the rotors will decrease friction and contaminate the pads; requiring the rotor to be thoroughly degreased and the pads replaced.
 
When you put the new seals in, note that the felt on most of the seals are way oversized. you can either trim them or verify that they are fully compressed. probably easier to trim them first.
 
70herald said:
When you put the new seals in, note that the felt on most of the seals are way oversized. you can either trim them or verify that they are fully compressed. probably easier to trim them first.
Click to expand...
Another option is to check the bearing clearance first, before installing the new seal. Then mark the nut and install the seal, putting the nut back where you marked it. The felt will compress to fit and there is no chance of thick felt upsetting the bearing adjustment.

This process is in at least one of the workshop manuals, TR4 I think.
 
That sounds like a very good practice to compress the felt. On the last installation I did I trimmed them as 70Herald suggested.
 
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