I repacked the wheel bearings on my 74 Spitfire the other day, a seemingly
routine job, one which I've done many times on other vehicles. The races
and bearings were in excellent shape, so the only thing I replaced were the
inner grease seals which I purchased from Victoria British.
When I reinstalled the hubs I could not get either of them on far enough to
insert the cotter pins through the castigated nuts. So I then really
cranked down the nuts to compress the felt on the seals. Of course, when I
did this I had no end play at all and the hubs could only be rotated by
using extreme force.
Next, I backed off the nuts until I could get a reasonable amount of end
play, but then I had to use a smaller cotter pins. I thought that perhaps
the felt were "wear in" after a few miles and I would then be able to get
the right cotter pins inserted. However, the hubs were still too far
outboard to allow me to reinstall the brake calipers.
Next, I pulled both hubs again to check every thing. The found the races
and seals were set at the proper depths. However, when I compared the
thickness of the felt on the new seals to that of the old (worn) seals I
found that the felt on the new seal was more than twice as thick as that of
the old ones. I then used an exacto knife and reduced the thickness of the
new seals by a considerable amount and every thing then mounted up as it
should.
My concern is that as the new seals wear in and the end play is readjusted
that metal to metal contact may develop between the hubs and the little
cups they insert into on the inboard side of the spindles.
Has anyone else encountered this problem with new inner seals?
I've driven the car about 50 miles since doing this and plan on pulling the
hubs again this weekend to recheck every thing. I'm thinking about making
up some seals to the proper thickness, if I can find a similar material.
Any suggestions on what to use would be appreciated.
Barry H. Adams
74 Spitfire
|