[Shotimes] Re: Bad Ball Joints or Wheel Bearings?

[Alan Fanning]

I'd say it's just barely perceptible, so maybe .030" or less?  I'll see if I
can put a dial indicator on it tomorrow. My '91 seems to have a bit more.

Having given this a little more thought, shouldn't wheel bearing play exist
at across any axis you choose, where ball joint play would be a max when the
wheel is jiggled across the horizontal axis?

    Alan


wrote:

>> To my disappointment, there is a tiny little bit of play on
>> the passenger side when shaking the wheel about the horizontal plane (hands
>> at 12:00 and 6:00).
> 
> That isn't that bad.  'Course you need to say how much a tiny bit of play is.
> I had
> 1/4 of an inch of play on Lowrider in a brand new bearing when I was getting
> ready
> to leave for the convention in Frederick in 2002.  That was immediately after
> I had
> the bearing replaced when the old one had about an inch of play.  These were
> (still
> are) Scott Chan's Wilwood knuckles that were new from TCE in about 1996 or so.
> That
> was the left side....the right side is still original, and at last check
> (2004) had
> hardly any measurable play.
> 
>> So, how do I tell whether the play is the result of bad ball joints or bad
>> wheel bearings? The car has 82k easy miles on it.
> 
> According to Helms, it takes two folks...one to wiggle the wheel, and one to
> observe
> the lower ball joint.  If there is any discernable movement there at all, you
> need
> to replace it or the LCA, whichever you want to do.  LCAs for SHOs are
> different
> than SLOs, and are about $82 each (left and right are different) at NAPA.
> 
> I tried to find a spec for wheel bearing play in Helms, and couldn't.  Someone
> else
> might know.
> 
> George