Bob :
I haven't tried running them tight to see what happens, but IMO the
reason the factory said to run them loose was because they were worried
about the effects of differential expansion. Under hard usage, the
brake rotors(drums) get quite hot, and some of that heat is conducted to
the hubs. A lot less heat is conducted to the spindles, with the result
that the hubs get hotter, and hence expand more, than the spindles do.
If that expansion reaches the end play in the wheel bearings, the load
on the bearings goes up drastically, leading to early (and even sudden)
bearing failure. Modern bearings and greases are probably better able
to deal with the load than what they had in the 50s, but why take the
chance ?
Randall
59 TR3A daily driver
Bob and Nancy wrote:
>
> Dear TR3 Intelligentsia,
>
> I rebuilt the front hubs on my TR3 today with new inner and outer
> bearings and races. The book says to load the bearing nut to 10
> ft.lb (I made a guess at this) then back off 1.5 to 2 flats depending
> on alignment of the cotter pin holes. When I did that I got a wheel
> with a lot of play in it. Grabbing the top and bottom of the wheel
> and shaking produced a lot of rattling. So I snugged the nut up one
> flat which took out the rattle.
>
> Did I do the right thing? How loose should the front wheels be? Any ideas?
>
> Bob
|