New driveline noise after lift

[bloc]

Changed the bearing today. Definitively, the issue was the right rear wheel bearing in self-destruct mode.

I got it apart to change, and noticed some metal flakes on the back of the inner bearing side shield, which has magnetized lines for the ABS sensor. The odd thing is I don't remember this metal being visible the last time I had it apart, which was only maybe 2-300 miles ago. Why it decided to migrate out this time? No idea.

This is after cleaning the grease up.

I decided to change the whole assembly then tear the old one apart and figure out what happened.

Turns out each bearing assembly has two opposing ball-bearing races that are each self contained with their own seals and grease pockets. The inner race was bad on mine, the outer was basically perfect.

I now remember what tire noise sounds like!!

All of the damage was at the top of the race, which is the portion that sees the weight of the vehicle. There technically being four bearing races in back, the top of this race sees roughly one quarter of the weight over the rear axle. Sides and bottom of the race were in good shape, considering what was rolling around in there.

Oddly only one of the ball bearings was bad. The rest were in great shape, only showing what seemed to be incidental damage from the swarf coming off the ugly one.

And here's a close-up of the bad side of it.

 

[bloc]

More pictures. I plan to post a thread dedicated just to this failure for easier to find info for people, and another one for the process to change the bearing. The axle comes out surprisingly quick, but getting the bearing off the axle and new one pressed on requires a fair amount of special tools and some luck with press accessories.

Some of the swarf collected from the bottom of the gasoline bucket I used to clean the grease off everything

On this one you can see the clear difference from top to side/bottom of the race

 

[TeCKis300]

Awesome that you got to the bottom of this! Looking forward to the DIY bearing change process.

Now that the 200-series has been out awhile and second hand owners are using them much harder, these tech threads will really benefit the community. Thank you!

 

[bloc]

Forgot to say I'll be stringing up @CharlieS chassis ears again soon to determine how different the brand new and good-but-160k-miles-old bearings sound. Will post with that audio if I get something worthwhile.

Awesome that you got to the bottom of this! Looking forward to the DIY bearing change process.

Now that the 200-series has been out awhile and second hand owners are using them much harder, these tech threads will really benefit the community. Thank you!

Lots of people posted lots of stuff to get me where I am working on cars, so I'm just trying to pay it forward.

Frankly this will be a pretty big job for most people, and just buying the tools will cost you more than what most shops would charge if you brought them the axle, which as you know isn't very difficult to get out. But this way someone can do both if they need to.

Thanks though!

 

[linuxgod]

Did you pull the right side as well or just the left? I'd be really curious once this swap is done if you still have Charlie's chassis ears if both bearings now sound the same or if the other side is louder. I'm thinking from the way this failed that the other side is likely fine though, your failure suggests to me there was something wrong with that one ball in the bearing, not that the bearings overall had excessive wear.

 

[CharlieS]

Great work getting to the bottom of this. That ball is fragged. I wonder if there was a hard shock load that hit that bearing particularly hard?

 

[CharlieS]

Forgot to say I'll be stringing up @CharlieS chassis ears again soon to determine how different the brand new and good-but-160k-miles-old bearings sound. Will post with that audio if I get something worthwhile.



Lots of people posted lots of stuff to get me where I am working on cars, so I'm just trying to pay it forward.

Frankly this will be a pretty big job for most people, and just buying the tools will cost you more than what most shops would charge if you brought them the axle, which as you know isn't very difficult to get out. But this way someone can do both if they need to.

Thanks though!

I used to belong to a club that had a pool of specialty tools. Sometimes I wish we had that here. Some of the tools are so rarely used that buying them is uneconomical.

 

[linuxgod]

Great work getting to the bottom of this. That ball is fragged. I wonder if there was a hard shock load that hit that bearing particularly hard?

I'm not a material engineer, but the wear on that single ball makes me think there was something wrong with whatever alloy was used or some other imperfection. I suppose shock loading could crack off some of the bearing but given only one was destroyed, even with all the metal floating around in there, it seems like @bloc was unlucky enough to get the one ball in 10,000 that had a flaw.

Honestly given all the shrapnel in there, I'm impressed how well all the other balls in that bearing held up

 

[bloc]

Did you pull the right side as well or just the left? I'd be really curious once this swap is done if you still have Charlie's chassis ears if both bearings now sound the same or if the other side is louder. I'm thinking from the way this failed that the other side is likely fine though, your failure suggests to me there was something wrong with that one ball in the bearing, not that the bearings overall had excessive wear.

This was actually the right side. Left did have the brown goo on the ABS sensor when I pulled it, which seems related to the failing bearing side, so I’ll be pulling it again to have a look for tip damage when I string up the ears again.

Great work getting to the bottom of this. That ball is fragged. I wonder if there was a hard shock load that hit that bearing particularly hard?

Roller bearings like this are designed specifically to distribute any loads to multiple ball bearings though.. I’m more inclined to believe either that one simply wasn’t as strong as the rest, or there was some kind of contamination issue. I’ll get some pictures of how different the balls from the other race look. It is curious.

I used to belong to a club that had a pool of specialty tools. Sometimes I wish we had that here. Some of the tools are so rarely used that buying them is uneconomical.

Yeah that would be a good idea. If I can find a good way to package the relevant tools for shipping I’d be willing to loan out the stuff other than the press with some kind of a security deposit. Shipping would add up but still way less than buying everything, not to mention needing even more tools to modify the press adapter to fit in a commonly available and cheap press. When I put together the thread for the job it’ll include a full list of what I used that the average person isn’t likely to have.

 

[linuxgod]

This was actually the right side. Left did have the brown goo on the ABS sensor when I pulled it, which seems related to the failing bearing side, so I’ll be pulling it again to have a look for tip damage when I string up the ears again.

Ah ok, yeah I thought your right side was the noisy one but further up you said it was the left rear bearing in self destruct mode. Anyway yeah, just wondering how the new one will sound as compared to the untouched side. Both my rears sounded like your quieter rear bearing (I think... hard to compare youtube videos)

Hoping to get my truck back from the shop today. Mechanic is finishing up the gears/lockers and is swapping my left front bearing since I was definitely getting a lot more noise from that one than from the right front. I'm anxious to see if the M/T-level of noise goes back to A/T levels

 

[bloc]

Ah ok, yeah I thought your right side was the noisy one but further up you said it was the left rear bearing in self destruct mode. Anyway yeah, just wondering how the new one will sound as compared to the untouched side. Both my rears sounded like your quieter rear bearing (I think... hard to compare youtube videos)

Hoping to get my truck back from the shop today. Mechanic is finishing up the gears/lockers and is swapping my left front bearing since I was definitely getting a lot more noise from that one than from the right front. I'm anxious to see if the M/T-level of noise goes back to A/T levels

Good catch, I'll edit that.

I'll definitely be putting those mics back on it to compare. Kinda been thinking about a thread devoted to just chassis ears, and maybe get the board's ideas on ways to take the mono output and convert it to something for input on lightning so we can get high quality audio of it..

Actually I'll do that today when I string up the mics.

Good luck with yours. I agree on the front left diagnosis based on your thread. My buddy's new to him 110K mile LX needed a front left just before he got it.. and now that I think about it my front left was slightly more noisy than my front right. Interesting coincidences there.

 

[linuxgod]

I'll definitely be putting those mics back on it to compare. Kinda been thinking about a thread devoted to just chassis ears, and maybe get the board's ideas on ways to take the mono output and convert it to something for input on lightning so we can get high quality audio of it..

I wonder how many other folks have them. They're definitely a cool troubleshooting tool. I don't want to deal with random engine noises but I can totally see how they've be helpful in tracking down rattles and ticking sounds too.

Good luck with yours. I agree on the front left diagnosis based on your thread. My buddy's new to him 110K mile LX needed a front left just before he got it.. and now that I think about it my front left was slightly more noisy than my front right. Interesting coincidences there.

Yeah if it wasn't for the fact I had both fronts replaced 45k miles ago I'd be strongly convinced that was it too. Still it could just be a random failure (I had a front bearing go within 50k miles with my Acura) and given the noise recorded it definitely seems worth the relatively small cost (given the work I'm already undertaking) to just do it.

 

[bloc]

I wonder how many other folks have them. They're definitely a cool troubleshooting tool. I don't want to deal with random engine noises but I can totally see how they've be helpful in tracking down rattles and ticking sounds too.


Yeah if it wasn't for the fact I had both fronts replaced 45k miles ago I'd be strongly convinced that was it too. Still it could just be a random failure (I had a front bearing go within 50k miles with my Acura) and given the noise recorded it definitely seems worth the relatively small cost (given the work I'm already undertaking) to just do it.

Turns out I was wrong.. my right front makes noise.

I need to edit the video with the new sounds but the two rear bearings definitely sound different, though not enough to get me concerned yet. That said, now with a quiet rear, that right front seems like more of a problem and I'll be tackling it before long.

 

[linuxgod]

Turns out I was wrong.. my right front makes noise.

I need to edit the video with the new sounds but the two rear bearings definitely sound different, though not enough to get me concerned yet. That said, now with a quiet rear, that right front seems like more of a problem and I'll be tackling it before long.

I do wonder how much noise is actually normal as they wear and not really cause for alarm. Or how much you actually end up picking up different noise through the chassis and mechanical bits. i.e. my left front was definitely a LOT louder than the right front, but how am I sure it's not CV noise being transmitted through the bearing? And my rears were noisier than the fronts, but I assume that either it's normal given the mic position or that I might be picking up diff noise through the rear axle housing. I'm curious what a pro who has used these quite a bit thinks.

If you decide to replace them, Cruiser Outfitters/CruiserTeq sells the Koyo front bearing kits for about $175. Since you have the ability to press them out a front pair is under $400 delivered, plus a few hours of labor. Kurt got me a front within a few days. They are beefy (and heavy) for their size.

 

[cruiseroutfit]

I do wonder how much noise is actually normal as they wear and not really cause for alarm. Or how much you actually end up picking up different noise through the chassis and mechanical bits. i.e. my left front was definitely a LOT louder than the right front, but how am I sure it's not CV noise being transmitted through the bearing? And my rears were noisier than the fronts, but I assume that either it's normal given the mic position or that I might be picking up diff noise through the rear axle housing. I'm curious what a pro who has used these quite a bit thinks.

If you decide to replace them, Cruiser Outfitters/CruiserTeq sells the Koyo front bearing kits for about $175. Since you have the ability to press them out a front pair is under $400 delivered, plus a few hours of labor. Kurt got me a front within a few days. They are beefy (and heavy) for their size.

We would love to help!

We do parts kits (bearings, seals, etc) that you can assembly with your existing parts OR we can assembly complete new front hub assemblies ready to bolt on with new/hardware included. We do similar kits for the 200 rear too!

 

[bloc]

I do wonder how much noise is actually normal as they wear and not really cause for alarm. Or how much you actually end up picking up different noise through the chassis and mechanical bits. i.e. my left front was definitely a LOT louder than the right front, but how am I sure it's not CV noise being transmitted through the bearing? And my rears were noisier than the fronts, but I assume that either it's normal given the mic position or that I might be picking up diff noise through the rear axle housing. I'm curious what a pro who has used these quite a bit thinks.

If you decide to replace them, Cruiser Outfitters/CruiserTeq sells the Koyo front bearing kits for about $175. Since you have the ability to press them out a front pair is under $400 delivered, plus a few hours of labor. Kurt got me a front within a few days. They are beefy (and heavy) for their size.

I just ran across something watching front bearing videos. Apparently the easy way to do those is to pull the bearing unit from the knuckle and leave the inner dust seal and o-ring that wraps around the CV joint in place, because changing that requires pulling at least some part of the knuckle to get the CV stub out through the seal. If that seal doesn't get replaced, it allows dirt and crap in that makes them fail much more quickly.

Any clue whether they did that to yours with the first front bearing job?

And yeah, if I wasn't getting such a good deal on will-call OEM parts at a counter 5 minutes from me I'd definitely be using Kurt more. I have bought a few things from him over the years and it always goes great.

Currently looking into whether I can successfully pull my front hub flange out of the bearing and reuse it.. more as a problem solving exercise than that being the best way.

 

[linuxgod]

I just ran across something watching front bearing videos. Apparently the easy way to do those is to pull the bearing unit from the knuckle and leave the inner dust seal and o-ring that wraps around the CV joint in place, because changing that requires pulling at least some part of the knuckle to get the CV stub out through the seal. If that seal doesn't get replaced, it allows dirt and crap in that makes them fail much more quickly.

Any clue whether they did that to yours with the first front bearing job?

And yeah, if I wasn't getting such a good deal on will-call OEM parts at a counter 5 minutes from me I'd definitely be using Kurt more. I have bought a few things from him over the years and it always goes great.

Currently looking into whether I can successfully pull my front hub flange out of the bearing and reuse it.. more as a problem solving exercise than that being the best way.

The dealer did hubs and bearings

 

[bloc]

Driver side ABS sensor. No marks on it when cleaned, but obviously the goo is there.

They aren't cheap but I'm going to put a bearing on that side and tear down the old one just to see how it looks.