Hi Pete,
Did you use new felt dust/grease seals on the inboard side of the front
hubs? If so, the ones being sold today are about twice as thick as the
originals. I cut about half the thickness off with a razor blade before
installing
them. If installed without this kind of trimming, the seal itself will often
fool you into thinking the hub is properly tightened. After a bit of use, the
untrimmed seal compresses a bit and the hub then feels loose, just as you
describe. Another possibility is that the bearings themselves weren't fully
seated,
but since you reused a good set I think a new seal, if one was installed, is
the more likely suspect. IMHO it's *always* a good idea to recheck front hub
tightness immediately after a test drive and again after the car has some low
mileage on it, and readjust as needed.
Regarding the castellated nut, just put a washer or two under it and
shim it out, if you wish. Be sure the "D" washer goes on first, right next to
the
bearing. This keeps the turning bearing from loosening the nut. Regular
washers can be put on as shims so long as they are on top of the D washer. The
cotter pin just keeps the nut from backing off with vibration. So long as it's
catching the nut a bit, it's fine. But, sure, you can shim a little if you like.
Regarding front ride height, many TRs tend to be a little "nose up" in
their stance. The really important thing is how balanced the car feels
cornering and such. If you like the handling and ride of the springs on your
car, I'd
try to avoid changing them. A relatively easy trick to drop the front roughly
slightly is to simply invert the lower control arms. They have an upward
"bend" in them, in normal installation. Inverting these means removing them,
then
removing the 3/8 NF stud at the indoard end and reinstalling it on the
opposite side (might need to tap the hole, it's often not threaded the whole
way
through), then reinstalling the control arm with the bend "down". This
effectively lowers the spring pan between 1/2 and 3/4", perhaps enough for your
liking.
I believe the poly or rubber pads are really just to keep the spring
from rubbing against the upper and lower mounts, to protect it from rubbing
and reduce noise. The rubber pads really don't add much ride height, probably
about 1/4" total on my TR4, which uses four pads per side because it has the
1-1/4" tall aluminum "packing piece" above the spring. I've never used the poly
ones and can't say if they are thicker, although I'd guess they compress less
over time than the rubber ones.
Note: If you invert the lower control arms, check the feel of the
steering and especially watch out for any "bump steer". This small amount of
lowering usually has no noticible effect on steering geometry, but I'd still
suggest
a little caution the first time you have the car back on the road.
Cheers!
Alan Myers
San Jose, Calif.
'62 TR4 CT17602L
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One question is, is it normal to have to readjust the hubs? I didn't
actually replace the bearings because they were only about 2 or 3 years
old and couldn't have more than about 3000 miles on 'em.
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