Loose wheel bearing

[marcfj60]

When I bought the hundy, it had worn out, bald Michelin LTX tires. Driving home it pulled to the right pretty good and I could tell at least one tire was out of balance. I got the new BFG's and things improved greatly but the steering wheel was still clocked about 10 degrees and it pulled to the right more than I thought it should.

Having destroyed a set of tires on the Honda from an out-of-toe condition, I now always get a vehicle aligned (or at least checked) after putting on a new set of tires. I took the hundy to have the alignment checked yesterday and was told that the left front wheel-bearing was loose. They tightened it and then checked the alignment and determined it was within spec. The numbers show only the caster on the RF is near its limit, -0.7, which was the measured amount and the limit. Everything else is very close to the middle of the spec.

Driving it back home, the steering wheel is now off only a couple degrees and it pulls to the right very slowly, as I've been told by a few people is by design. Everything seems good now.

The question I have is what sort of damage might have been caused by the 'loose' wheel bearing? Granted, this is an IFS system with CV axle so it's vastly different than a solid axle with a Birfield knuckle. There's no need for knuckle rebuilds. Should I consider adding packing wheel bearings to the list of PM I need to get done? The truck has 92K miles on it.

Another maintenance item I did yesterday was tighten up a loose door handle. The passenger front door handle has been loose since I bought it. Took off the door panel to fix it and was impressed with the quality of the mounting of the panel. Most panels are held on with a couple screws and a crapload of pop-in clips that seem to eventually wear out or tear out of of the fiberboard panel material. This door panel is held on with only one of those pop-in clips, seven screws and 3 clips of the type that you push the center pin in to release them.

Another thing I was impressed by was the design of the window operator. Many power windows these days are operated on a plastic/nylon track. These doors still use the old fasioned regulator with criss-crossing lift sytem that manual doors use. There is a window motor mounted to it for power function. I wonder if you can buy manual window models in other countries so that's the basic design and then the luxo-cruiser models get a motor added to the assembly.

 

[marcfj60]

I did a little more looking at how the front hub is designed just out of curiosity this weekend. I looked at the diagrams and wheel-bearing preload procedures in the FSM.

The front hub looks very much like the spindle design on average rear-wheel drive vehicles. There is a spindle in the center of part the FSM refers to as the steering knuckle, with a ball joint at the top and bottom for pivoting.

The spindle itself is hollow, allowing a place for the axle to run through. So the wheel hub mounts to the end of the spindle with a large nut and you adjust the amount of breaking resistance in the hub bearings using that spindle nut.

The bearings are an open-design (as opposed to a sealed-for-life cartridge) where you have the ability to remove them and repack them.

The hub is driven by the axle via a flange which is splined to it in the center and then bolts to the face of the hub with six cone washers and nuts secured to the inner ring of studs.

Oh, and the brake rotor is a separate unit from the hub but it is bolted to the back of the hub and trapped behind it when installed. It also prevents you from being able to replace wheel lug studs unless you remove the hub assembly from the spindle and then remove the rotor.

I'd include pictures but I don't have a scanner and I'm too lazy to look on ToyoDIY.

I'm sure all of this design improves handling and feel on-road but seems to be less rugged than a FF Birfield design of previous generation Cruisers.

 

[DanS HJ-45]

The question I have is what sort of damage might have been caused by the 'loose' wheel bearing?

Depends on just how loose we're talking about here. You're describing a pretty standard full floating spindle assembly (just like the spindle on the front of most cruisers, any full float rear axle, any airplane wheel, etc...). In all of the airplanes I have worked on, a loose wheel bearing will cause all sorts of problems, but the damage was always limited to the tire (just abnormal wear) and the wheel bearings/races themselves.

Unless the bearings had grenaded and tossed the bits around the spindle gouging the spindle, I don't think there's anything else susceptible to damage from a loose bearing. If it's play was less than 1/4" (which would be a LOT), I don't think you would be able to apply enough pressure (by pulling) the CVs to damage them.

Dan

 

[alia176]

I tend to over tighten wheel bearings rather than under tighten them. I don't think you can go wrong with this mentality. If they feel loose to you, crank them tighter!

 

[marcfj60]

I've been trying to decide if I want to tackle checking the preload using the method described in the FSM or just by Ali's method.

The book shows a diagram of a spring-force gauge pulling on a wheel stud tangent to the circle that is traced by the rotating studs and then lists a torque range which correlates to the proper preload of the spindle nut. I imagine I could buy the SST (Special Service Tool?) listed in the FSM which would be calibrated for that job and list the values in torque. Or I could just buy a decent spring force gauge and convert it to torque myself.

 

[alia176]

buy a decent fish weigh scale from Walmart and go to town dude! You'll need to remove the brake caliper though. On the 80 FSM, the scale uses "lb" for the spring scale. What does your FSM use?

 

[Rudical]

buy a decent fish weigh scale from Walmart and go to town dude! You'll need to remove the brake caliper though. On the 80 FSM, the scale uses "lb" for the spring scale. What does your FSM use?

Or, if you are in the neighborhood and don't want to buy one, I can leave the one I got from Marlin (or was it Christo?). Hopefully, I don't plan in any hurry to be using it. Maybe I should rethink that. Ali was under my truck with wrenches, but we will find out if I make it back from Moab. Speaking of fish, is there anywhere near Moab to fish? I bought a nice rod and reel and I wanna make sure it gets used.

 

[pappy]

The Colorado River might have some fish.

 

[DanS HJ-45]

I tend to over tighten wheel bearings rather than under tighten them. I don't think you can go wrong with this mentality. If they feel loose to you, crank them tighter!

Actually, you can do some harm by overtightening them. Not only could you overstress the bearing cage, but you are increasing rolling resistance (and thus losing valuable MPG!!!).

The normal method on an airplane (which is identical to a full floating truck hub) is to tighten it all the way (until it's pretty hard to turn) and then back the nut off until it is easy to turn, but has no lateral play when you push/pull on the hub. That's it. You want the wheel to spin as easily as possible, but not have any play along the spindle.

The fish scale method is simply a foolproof way of doing that. If the preload is X pounds, then it is assumed to be tight enough to avoid any and all lateral play.

Dan

 

[juane]

I over tightened one on a bug once.
Burned up the bearing in the middle of Wyoming.
Had to get towed to Shoshone where I spent the weekend waiting for parts to get bussed in.
The old bearing race had to be torched off as it had welded itself to the spindle.
Too loose is better than two tight.

Missing muster at my naval duty station was also not good.

juane

 

[alia176]

This is becoming a light debate of sort I guess

Here's some more info from Kevin that talks about wheel bearing tightness. He is a wealth of practical Toyota knowledge. IH8MUD.com - View Single Post - Wheel bearing failed!

In case you are thinking of over greasing your wheel bearings, don't! IH8MUD.com - View Single Post - Wheel bearing failed!

Info from Robbie IH8MUD.com - View Single Post - What did I Do Wrong? My Bets the Fish Scale

This thread talks about fish scales vs over tighten and all that stuff
https://forum.ih8mud.com/80-series-tech/94600-what-did-i-do-wrong-my-bets-fish-scale.html

and yes, properly maintained wheel bearings should last the life of the vehicle. Anytime I deal with tapered bearings, I will over tighten them - this includes the carrier bearings in the differential as well.

 

[OGBeno]

I think the notion is slightly over tightened, not too much, so if the spec calls for 12 ft/lbs of torque, I usually go to about 15-18 ft./lbs which won't make much difference.

 

[marcfj60]

buy a decent fish weigh scale from Walmart and go to town dude! You'll need to remove the brake caliper though. On the 80 FSM, the scale uses "lb" for the spring scale. What does your FSM use?

The book lists all three common units for torque, N-m, kg-cm and in-lb. My vague memory of the spec was 23-44 in-lb. So as long as I get a scale that reads Newtons, kilograms or pounds, I'll be good. I just need to measure the distance from the center of the hub to the wheel stud and divide the torque spec by that number to get the target force reading/range on the scale.

Rudy, thanks for the offer to borrow the scale. I'm not sure when I'll have time to work on this with Balloon Fiesta activities and a houseguest but maybe I can at least get the wheel and caliper off and see how it feels currently. I'll see what scales I can find at Walley World or Sportsman's Warehouse the next time I'm there. You'd think somebody who is an avid fisherman would have one. I do but it's a peice of crap and just gives me a rough order of magnitude. I'd like something a bit higher quality/precision. If you're going to be in my neigborhood or passing by and could drop it off, that'd be great. If not, that's fine too.

 

[Cruisergreg]

I think the notion is slightly over tightened, not too much, so if the spec calls for 12 ft/lbs of torque, I usually go to about 15-18 ft./lbs which won't make much difference.

I would have to disagree about over being better than undertight. In my early autocross days I learned to show up with them just a tad loose. This would always come up in the tech inspection but after a few runs they were nice and tight due to thermal expansion. I think if you overtighten a cold set of bearings you could end up having problems with hard use, as is Juane's experience.

I have used, essentially, Robbie's method since I was 16 without a lick of trouble. When I rebuilt my knuckles C-Dan convinced me to use the fish scale method (with his uber scale) but I could never get consistent results and the adjustment never "felt" right. My guess is that the weight/newness/volume of grease together with brake drag makes that method inaccurate. Went back to the old way...

 

[marcfj60]

My guess is that the weight/newness/volume of grease together with brake drag makes that method inaccurate. Went back to the old way...

You've certainly got to remove the calipers to get a more accurate force/torque, eliminating the friction from the brake pads.

 

[Cruisergreg]

You've certainly got to remove the calipers to get a more accurate force/torque, eliminating the friction from the brake pads.

And that's one of the benefits of the Robbie method. I can adjust the bearings on the 60 without even taking the wheel off.

 

[marcfj60]

I would expect that the alignment shop that tightened up my loose bearing probably did not take off the wheel, since I have locks on them and the key is wrapped up in the tool-kit which is hidden inside the panel at the back. I'll have to check this method out and see how it works for me.

 

[DanS HJ-45]

I would expect that the alignment shop that tightened up my loose bearing probably did not take off the wheel, since I have locks on them and the key is wrapped up in the tool-kit which is hidden inside the panel at the back. I'll have to check this method out and see how it works for me.

Locks do not require a key to remove. Look to see 6 or 12 small marks on the outside of the lock and you'll find out if they removed it or not. Ali has heard about this method (just tap a socket over the key and spin it off), and when we needed to remove Paul's (Bad Mojo) wheel, but discovered that he had forgotten the key in town, it was literally a 3 minute job to get all four keys off. They pretty much protect against anyone but a professional thief looking to defeat them (something tells me there aren't all that many people who just walk by with a tire iron and decide to steal a tire).

Amazingly, I never once thought about tightening the bearings with the wheel on the hub. I learned a good trick (I guess it makes sense--if you can check it, you can tighten it)...

Dan

 

[Bad Mojo]

Locks do not require a key to remove. Look to see 6 or 12 small marks on the outside of the lock and you'll find out if they removed it or not. Ali has heard about this method (just tap a socket over the key and spin it off), and when we needed to remove Paul's (Bad Mojo) wheel, but discovered that he had forgotten the key in town, it was literally a 3 minute job to get all four keys off. They pretty much protect against anyone but a professional thief looking to defeat them (something tells me there aren't all that many people who just walk by with a tire iron and decide to steal a tire).

Amazingly, I never once thought about tightening the bearings with the wheel on the hub. I learned a good trick (I guess it makes sense--if you can check it, you can tighten it)...

Dan

I remember that. It worked like a charm too. Kinda pointless to have keyed wheels in some places, but it also makes it look like you care.

 

[marcfj60]

Locks do not require a key to remove. Dan

My father used to have a saying:

"Locks only keep honest people honest."

I know if somebody really wants my tires, they'll take them. Nobobdy with any brains would ever want to steal my wheels since they only fit on a 100-series. Since the truck lives in the garage and doesn't get driven much, I'm really not too concerned. But after I spent $1,000 on a new set of tires, I decided it wouldn't be a bad idea to put the locks on and then hope it would deter most thieves. And these locks have a head that starts out at a small diameter and then flares out kind of like the shape of a bugle, which might make it slightly harder to get off, unless you had a pair of vice-grips handy.