wheel bearing guru's

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instigator

instigator

20 Year 15 Year 10 Year OG
Joined
Nov 27, 2002
Threads
20
Messages
255
Location
georgia
just replaced my front rotors today and noticed the right hub was loose, before removal of anything but the wheel. these bearing were installed new about 2 years ago but with no other maintenance done to them (yeah i know...). anyway the replacement of the bearings were done by the FSM almost to the letter. let me tell ya why i say alomost. when torqueing the inner nut to the final 43in lbs i have to over torque to achieve the starting resistance of the 6-12 lbs.

so what im asking the really conscience about maintenance type is, do you guys go by the torque of the nut or by the resistance of the hub starting to roll after the outer nut is torqued. i read (while searching this subject) that a few just torque to 10ft lbs and be done with it.

and another question is, when you guys go back to repack the bearings do you find that they have loosened a bit? i personally would like for them to stay where i put them, but then again i want to live in a perfect world.

folks please give me the most ya got, please elaberate as much as possible.

yes i did search:)
 
I'm the guy who started the 10 ft lb thing. Been doing it since 1987 of a 60 and an 80. Total about 300k miles without issues. I can confidently say it will work for anyone and I did this because the right front bearing on my 60 would constantly loosen over time and the FSM procedure didn't work for me.
 
x2 landtank. I use the same procedure on mine (2 80s, 1 60, 1 55) and have had great luck.
 
You are talking about in place of using the fishscale for the pre-load, correct?
 
yeah, i didnt want to name names. i also have noticed that when getting the right preload before the lock nut, when torqueing the locknut it throws it off continuosly. i'll have to give the 10 ft lbs a try. also what is the intreval of you repacks?
 
I just tore down my DS again (5th time in two months) because of a bad seal. I am going to be tearing down again in the next 2 months so I can put in my longfields.

After that I hope to never touch those cursed bastard knuckles again! :)
 
Romer said:
You are talking about in place of using the fishscale for the pre-load, correct?
Click to expand...

Yes, in place of the spring scale method.

Tighten the inner nut to 10 ft lbs, rotate the hub several times back and forth.

Re torque to 10 ft lbs, rotate the hub several times back and forth

repeat above two steps until there is no need to re torque.

install tabbed locking washer

install outer nut and torque to 43 ft lbs

Bend tabs of locking washer over.

I do the same for the rear but never tighten over the 10 ft lbs to get the locking washer to line up with the screw holes. This means I have to usually loosen the nut slightly to get the screws in.
 
instigator said:
yeah, i didnt want to name names. i also have noticed that when getting the right preload before the lock nut, when torqueing the locknut it throws it off continuosly. i'll have to give the 10 ft lbs a try. also what is the intreval of you repacks?
Click to expand...

Do both sides, I think you will find that the front end will feel much nicer when cornering and when on bumpy roads. I repack my bearings every 60k. I think Toyota recommends 30k intervals.
 
I know that this has been talked about to death, including by myself, but after all our arguing about how to "setup the setup", this is my conclusion...

For mostly experimental purposes I have repeated and repeated the procedure precisely as the FSM states and am always ending up in uppermost range of proper preload poundage (12.8 to 13.2). This was with new wheel bearings, new torque nuts, even new washer nuts. In fact, as past posts prove, the fact that it was always at the tip top of the recommended range made me repeat and repeat the procedure to try to get it more "mid-range". Yes, I'm OCD! Anyways, my point is that I do not understand how following the proper procedure yields such drastically different results; I cannot create such variation even when I try to!!! My bearings are always setup pretty tight (per the FSM) and always stay consistently tight.

Now, having shared and stated all that foolosophy above, I will also state even stronger that if I EVER HAD a loose bearing at any time for any reason I would IMMEDIATELY switch to the ten pound provision cause Rick has proven that it works and that it works well. It is not simply some 'hunch'; he has proven that the bearings can take that torque in all conditions and that at 60K intervals (which is way higher than my interval of 30K) the bearings are fine. That works well enough for me, and again, if a bearing actually loosened up on me after following the FSM so precisely, I'd ditch the FSM and go with what works, Rick's method works. Only one caution then to anyone experiencing loosening bearings ... make SURE that you have fully seated all the races, and make SURE that you have fully seated the hub before you use either the FSM or the Rick method. If something starts off loose like that all the torque values are wrong and you have a huge potential problem on your hands. Hope that helps. :cheers:
 
The spring tension method will give a bogus reading if the inner oil seal is not lubricated. The lip of the seal needs a swipe of grease or it will drag and lead you to believe the preload is higher than it really is.
 
cruiserdan said:
The spring tension method will give a bogus reading if the inner oil seal is not lubricated. The lip of the seal needs a swipe of grease or it will drag and lead you to believe the preload is higher than it really is.
Click to expand...

Agreed, I always lube seals and shafts prior to pushing them through. :cheers:
 
Informationally, I find that when my bearings are beautifully set up I can faintly detect some slack when the truck is stone cold in the winter. But when I'm driving on a trip, I cannot feel any slack at all.

So, I've always assumed that the tolerances tighten in the bearing structure when it's up to operating temp range. What this means is that you guys can use this as another dot in the box you're trying to be sure the bearing fit is within. If your bearings are loose at a gas stop, consider simply opening things up and tightening the nut 10 degrees. If they're not slightly loose when cold, AND you feel the wheels get too hot on freeway trips, consider opening things up and loosening the nut 10 degrees.

I've opened mine up a few times to do this over the years. You don't even have to remove the wheel. Just pop the center cap, pull the grease cup, tapered washer/nuts and there are the bearings.

I like the 10ft/lb technique also.

DougM
 
PS - that's front wheel bearings. Rears are a tad (heh) more involved to fine tune the bearings.....


DougM
 
One other thing to consider-I have found that with new bearings, they seem to benifit from resetting the preload after 5000 miles or so. I set them to the upper limit and sometimes even a bit above and still find the preload a little low down the road. Used bearings don't seem to do this.

One other thing-while it is perfectly acceptable to clean and reuse the bearing, it is 300% easier to use new bearings each time and simply toss the old ones. On my 80 that's like 4 year's worth of driving. Since the Timkins can be had pretty cheap, that's what I've been doing. I made a tool for driving the new races out of two old races and it makes driving in the new races a trivial job.

BTW-I just bought a new set of bearings from AutoZone, and those loosers have raised the price! It's now about $50 for the front axle, where it used to be $36. I would add a pic of my stack of new bearings but my star must have just expried.
Bearing1.webp
 
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the autozone around doesnt even know what a timken bearing is. i had to go the a not so loacal bearing and drive retailer to get a set, and they still charged me for the shipping from one warehouse to theres. i got bent on that deal.

i think i'll wait until my next filter change to go back into the bearings to check the play and resistance. then i'll make the decision to redo or leave it for anothe filter change, in other words i'm going to keep an eye on them from now on.
 
My bro in law's 80 that I now care for has 312,000 miles on the original rears. I repacked them for the first time at 290k or so. These are very high quality bearings from the factory - Koyo High Capacity is marked on them.

DougM
 
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