Wheel bearing nut torque

[bigjones]

Hi folks,

I went to tighten that castellated nut but 46 ft lbs seems an awful lot.

I tightened it by hand - the disc could be spun with a certain amount of drag that felt about right. (Just to give you an idea of my "hand tight" - I could turn the nut further from hand-tight with the torque wrench set at 10 ft ilbs)

Using the torque wrench, without even reaching 46 ft lbs, the disc could not be spun - it is locked solid.

I realise that the nut should be backed off (if necessary) to get the slot in the spindle lined up with a castellation but even so.

I must be doing something wrong here.

Any ideas?

Adrian
1500 Midget

 

[ChrisS]

The only time that he front hub should lock up like that is if they have been converted to tapered roller bearings and the spacer between the bearings has been left out. Do you know what type of bearings are in there?

 

[Jim_Gruber]

Or perhaps the bearings were put in backwards

 

[Jim_Gruber]

Adrian,

I sent you an e-mail showing proper Bearing Orientation. I've got this job to do myself over the next few weeks to get rid of some woobly wheels.

 

[bigjones]

Thanks Chris and Jim,

Well, it looks like they are ball bearings and they have been put in correctly.

Jim, thanks for the diagram - a picture is worth a thousand swear words.

Cheers,
Adrian (time to pull the hub)
1500 Midget

 

[ChrisS]

What did you do when it was apart?

 

[bigjones]

Chris,

Sorry for the confusion.

The front tires have worn very badly (on the inside treads)
I jacked the car up and tried to rock the tire (12 and 6 o' clock).

Sure enough, there is a little play there.

All I have done so far was try to torque the castellated nut.
I've never looked at the bearings in this car before.
Guess there is a first time for everything!

Cheers,
Adrian

 

[bigjones]

OK, executive decision time - I torqued the nut to 46 ft lbs and backed it off exactly 1 and 1/2 flats and inserted the split pin. (just backing off 1/2 a flat and to me it was way too tight).
The other wheel was OK backing the nut off 1 flat from 46 ft lbs.

This was just to get the car out the garage. It still has slight wheel play.

OK, looks like I'm going to pull the hub sometime soon and take a look at the bearing. You know they are going to be bad. Any recommendations for a decent bearing supplier?

TRF has Timken bearings for my TR3 but they don't do spridgets. I'm a bit far from the big city and bearing suppliers so I would prefer to just to mail order.

Cheers,
Jones

 

[Dadandson]

I find this interesting. I replaced the wheel bearings on my 74 when I did the front end. I have the castle nut torqued tight but the bearings seem to have a tiny bit of play. Do you think that the center spacer is too long? I have checked the bearings and I am 100% confident that I have them installed correctly.

 

[bigjones]

Tim,

Let me take the hub apart and all will be revealed!

I don't know what is going on but something ain't right.

Cheers,
Jones

 

[ChrisS]

O
OK, looks like I'm going to pull the hub sometime soon and take a look at the bearing. You know they are going to be bad. Any recommendations for a decent bearing supplier?

TRF has Timken bearings for my TR3 but they don't do spridgets. I'm a bit far from the big city and bearing suppliers so I would prefer to just to mail order.

The bearing #'s for the front wheel (Timken /National
Seal 471192
Inner Ball Bearing 7205
Outer Ball Bearing 7303
As long as you get a good quality bearing like Timken you should be able to get them anywhere.

 

[Trevor Jessie]

OK, there is a fellow on the MGCARS BBS that claims that the bearings currently supplied for our cars are not adequate replacement parts. His explanation and investigation seemed thorough. I can not remember the details, but in essence it had to do with the manufacturing tolerances were too great on some dimension. Thus, sometimes you would get a set that worked fine with the spacer, and other times... not so much. He found a different type of BALL bearing that will work but the angular contact is different. He is doing further investigation to see if they will work in our application.
But to answer your question... sometimes the spacers need to be machined with replacement bearings, yet... there will be more play in these bearings than tapered rollers.