Technical Wheel bearing failure

I just hung up the phone after talking to a fellow club member that experienced a catastrophic wheel bearing failure, he said this is the first time in several years he had driven his old truck and he said he had just stopped to fill up the tank on his way home and noticed his drivers side wheel seemed to be smoking.

He said he was just a couple of miles from home and the truck just barely made it to the driveway and just seized up, the front wheel would not move.

He said he couldn't remember the last time he checked the front wheel bearings but he was going to suggest in the club news letter for everyone to check them along with everything else before you we hit the road this summer.

After I hung up I got to thinking just when was the last time I checked mine, I called my self ready for the upcoming season having checked off everything on my list but I honestly don't remember checking my wheel bearings in last 5 or 6 years, maybe longer.

It's on yje list before we go to Cherokee later on this month, when's the last time you checked yours? HRP

 

There was a time when wheel bearing maintenance happened at every brake job. The drum or rotor got turned and bearings got cleaned in the part sink before hand packing.
Now a days it has become normal to just stick new pads in and go down the road.

It's hard just to find a tub of bearing grease anymore

 

Non greaseable front end parts , transmissions with no dipstick , wheel bearings that can't be greased , u-joints with no zerks , this is why even us older guys don't think about maintenance like we used to , its no longer discussed , hell , serpentine belts last forever & you dont adjust them , never think about them you don't check the water in batteries any longer , most cars are front wheel drive , so no differential to check , no speedo cables to lube any longer , sealed LED lighting lasts forever . when's the last time you even looked at your antifreeze , let alone changed it ?. Its really amazing how little there is to care for on newer vehicles when you think about it !

 

Just to add to this, when was the last time you saw a rotted muffler/tailpipe laying on the side of the road? Today's stuff is practically maintenance free compared to our hot rods. We get complacent sometimes when we don't need to keep track of maintenance interval's.

 

Damned good reminder/PSA Danny.

 

My daily's went out at 250K miles.

 

Interesting, I looked at mary and thought I hadn't done the front bearings forever, and having two brand new rotors, decided what the hell. Changed both rotors and cured a front end shake I'd had for twenty years.

 

Get one of those Harbor Freight or better infrared temperature guns snd periodically check the temperatures of the hubs and brakes. If a reading is out of line with the others, investigate further.

 

Haven’t done a car in a long time…….but have done several trailers in that same time. I lost a trailer wheel one time and it passed me! I thought, look some fool just lost a wheel! Then I noticed it looked real similar to mine! Lol








Bones

 

The coupe gets wheel bearings cleaned and re-packed every off season .

 

Not so much on my OT daily but whenever towing a trailer and pull up for fuel or a piss I walk around the trailer and put my hand on the hubs and tyres to check for excessive heat. Probably a hang up from my truck driving days. The amusing thing is I'm the only person I've seen doing it.

 

I worked in a gas station in 1963 and that's something we did pretty regularly. Kind of like checking the water and oil at every gas fill up.

 

Even on the daily I feel the hubs while on a road trip or while towing just to make sure nothing is getting too hot. That said, I had almost 300K on my truck and think I only did the front wheel bearings once when I swapped out rotors? Maybe not even once

 

I have a bad habit on road trips of doing that every now and then, especially when hauling a trailer...but I use my hand instead of the temp gun.

I only had one near catastrophe with a wheel bearing....a couple years ago...and I survived. Yeah, I pay more attention now.

Thanks Danny

 

Food for thought...

 

On new cars the tune up is dead .
Valve adjustments
Thermostats
Belts
Hoses
Grease fittings on anything are non existent
Fluids are “ life time “
Fuel filters

up to the late 90’s tune ups where almost a yearly thing depending on the amount of driving you did .

when I got out of automotive I worked at a Toyota dealership , out of all the young guys who worked there 5 years or less NONE of them ever changed or gaped a set of spark plugs .

None adjusted valves

or anything else that was “periodic maintenance “

mall that stuff is alive and well in forklifts snd heavy equipment, shit that last 10 years or so I actually fix shit again !!! Lol.

I love customers who don’t believe in a maintenance program as it’s just a “ cash grab”
Then blow out a $4000 dollar steer axle ( king pin set up ) when the thrust bearing blow out it’s almost instant damage requiring machine shop work and fabrication.

or mast damage etc.

when they ask “why did this happen”

I tell them “ that $150 bucks every 3 month would of stoped this from ever becoming an issue”


As has been stated “ GREASE IS CHEAP “


I don’t do a thing in my wife daily driver appliance , I bring it to the garage , have them put it in the hoist and inspect it , much easier for them then me crawling around the drive way , I’ll do the brakes or what ever but for $60 bucks change the oil and take a look for me there. Fella won’t you be so kind

 

Since you asked and I have to give you two thumbs up for a great reminder . I am today in fact because I am putting my front suspension back together as it is getting all new Timken, National seals, and Moog parts bushings and ball joints from one side to the other. New studs even .

 

You’re not the only one, I do that too.

Lost a rear wheel bearing on the 8” rear in the Lincoln coming home from Tupelo MS a few years back. Wasn’t as bad as Squirrel’s, mine still had a few balls left, but was making a racket. Was surprised when I pulled off the brake drum and the axle dropped!

 

A catastrophic failure with a wheel bearing destroying the spindle on our Ranch Wagon is what got the car stuck in the barn so many years ago. HRP

 

I worked at a gas / service station on the highway in the late '60s - early '70s. In the summer time when folks were vacationing we would see 3 or 4 with wheel bearings turned to a clump of burned up metal and smoke. Many times I had to find a spindle and a hub to get them back on the road again. It was a good lesson for me, I make sure the wheel bearings are serviced at regular intervals. I did loose a rear wheel bearing on my '63 a few years ago and needed some help, but there was little to no advance warning something was wrong and the bearing wasn't all that old. The failed bearing wasn't made in North America either.

 

Same as Squirrel, takes a couple of seconds to walk around and feel the hubs, funny how trailers get more attention though.

 

Raised in my uncles gas station (50s-60s) They had me pulling front wheels all day long for brake inspection, side cutters (dikes) and a channel locks, was all you needed to see the shoes. Followed with a big gob of bearing grease for the outer, and a 2 finger smear to the inner bearing. That was good enough til next time.
In the eighties-early ninetys, different place, a Mopar Caravan had trouble. but the bearing is sealed. $90 for the part. The price to only service both sides, Back When, was $4.75.

 

It was standard and should be on any rear wheel drive with packable front wheels to pack the front wheel bearings every 10,000 miles. For most rodders that means that packing them once a year in the annual pre season prep is probably overkill but if you know that they are packed right and that you have inspected them and looked the front brakes over in the process.

I was taught in the fall of 1962 to never upon never wash wheel bearings out in solvent unless you were inspecting them because they may be bad as there is no way that you can get the solvent out of the bearing and no matter how well you pack a bearing the grease may not stick to the bearings and lubricate as good as it should. I taught my students the same thing when I taught. In 60 years I have had only a couple of wheel bearings that I packed go bad in under 10K and at least one of those was probably suspect to begin with.

There is a correct way to pack bearings and a lot of wrong ways too. I've replaced a lot of wheel bearings that had pretty fresh grease in the hubs but it was obvious that the bearings were not packed correctly.

That doesn't count boat trailer bearings that have been in salt water though. I found out on my sailboat trailer that I should have pulled the hubs and cleaned and packed the bearings in the parking lot of the marina before heading home. 2 hours of wheel packing would have saved me an overnight stay in a rest area parking lot and 100 bucks for wheel bearings from a "we don't give discounts" place.

 

I think it's because the trailer is back there, wagging it's tail like a dog and usually with a decent load. The tow vehicle USUALLY lets you know if things are iffy through feel.

 

I like many here packed hundreds of wheel bearings starting in the 60's working in a gas station then continuing on in the 70's and 80's at dealerships. I remember in the 50's and 60's Ford used tapered roller bearings and Chevy used ball bearings, the Chevy ball bearings failed way more often especially with large offset wheels. Then came disc brakes and a new higher temperature grease, now there are many different types of grease and they don't play well in the wrong application or when the wrong types get mixed. Many of the new sealed hub units contain greases that last a very long time and the set up of the bearing preload (tapered bearings) is very different than the old open hubs you could service. Just like engine oils have evolved and changed over the last 5 decades grease has evolved as well. If you are packing the bearings every 10K miles just about any grease will work as long as it isn't mixed with incompatible types. Do check the bearings yearly on our old cars just for the peace of mind, most rear bearings can't be serviced except by replacing. Some old DANA / SPICER axles do have rear bearings that must be packed and preloaded, my 63 Studebaker was one example. What works for one person doesn't always work for another.

 

As said above,mixing different grease can cause failures. I experienced this first hand at a school bus garage in the 1970’s..

 

Yeah but if you catch it on the side of the road before failure Ill mix grease in a New York minute to get me home... But I do agree, I only buy the Lucas Red and tacky and run it in everything. Easy way to make sure everything matches.

 

Believe it or not, I past one yesterday.

 

I hit my 23 grease zerks over winter as I adjusted and bled the brakes. Will repack the front bearings when I rotate the wheels this spring.