Bad wheel bearing again...freakin'-A

[whiteguy3]

Got a 94 ATX. I had my passenger side wheel bearing without a new hub replaced about a couple of months ago and all is fine. Soon after, my driver side wheel bearing goes bad. So I got the wheel bearing replaced without a new hub a couple of months ago. That didn't last very long. Pretty sure it was bad installation on the shops part.

Soon after I decided to make a trip to j/y to pick up a used spindle for the drivers side. Let's just say I have done that twice and both were ok for a couple of days and then they go bad.

My alignment is really bad and needs to be done. But, I don't think that would cause one wheel bearing to go bad...or would it??

Also, checked axle nut and it's definately tight. Lug nuts are tight too.

Any ideas???

 

[rubydist]

I and a couple of other guys have recently had poor experiences w/ Timken bearings in the front hubs - it may be that the bearing was crappy rather than the shop messing it up.

 

[projectSHO89]

Do NOT replace only the bearing. ALWAYS replace BOTH the hub and bearing.

Make darned sure the axle nut is PROPERLY torqued. AutoZone has the big TQ wrench available in their Loan-a-Tool program.

Failure to follow the above advice means you WILL do it twice (at least).

 

[TopGunnYFZ]

Yeah I went through a Timken on my MTX replaced with a national hub and bearing this time guy at the shop told me axle nut Tq spec is 190 ftlbs on the front if its not tight enough you'll be replacing it often

 

[Kens1992mtxSHO]

Scott, when you need an alignment done gimme a call. Steve will take care of you.

 

[Shoaz]

Do NOT replace only the bearing. ALWAYS replace BOTH the hub and bearing.

I disagree. You can often tell whether the hub has tapered as there'll be obvious wear marks. If the hub hasn't tapered there's really no reason not to reuse it.

And I'll second the bad experiences with Timken. I just went through three on the LF corner of the Pumpkin, including a hub change (the old one had tapered), and the thing that finally fixed it was using something OTHER THAN a Timken bearing. A cheapier ValuCraft from Autozone finally made it rock-solid.

Timken FTL.

 

[Eric VerValin]

There was a period of time.. I think I have a total of 5 I went thru.. one time some shop did it, the rest I did.. some were just crap outta the bag... I froze the bearing, got the spindle cherry red, when I pressed it in.. everything possible the second and third times.. lol They just have some cheap ones or there was a bad run of them I'm thinking... Some had shorter wheel studs..

Double check the torque on those nuts too.. and use new ones each time. Maybe the threads on your axles are a little worn down, and not holding very well... regardlesss, get a nice breaker bar or whatever and get it tight.. 150 lbs + IIRC.. its quite a lot.. get a friend to hold their foot on the brake.

 

[whiteguy3]

Thanx guys for the suggestions. Just becomes frustrating as you all know.

Scott, when you need an alignment done gimme a call. Steve will take care of you.

I will take you up on that. As always, thanks Ken.