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

[Alan Fanning]

After shooting my ancient dial indicator with a little WD40 to get the shaft
to slide easily, I laid it against the offending wheel rim at the 6:00
position and measured the play as I shook the wheel in and out from the
12:00 position. I measured around .006-.008 inch play while holding onto the
coil spring to dampen out overall car motion (the raised wheel side of the
car was just supported on my floor jack). I think I'm going to move on to
the next "problem" and leave this one for another day!

    Alan!

I wrote:

> 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.
>> 

>> George