rear hub rebuild , not as easy as i hoped.........

[Brakebuster]

have been working with Phil on his '90 XJS again today ,

I spotted that his rear hub on the drivers side had an apparent collapsed bearing, and lower pivot bearings as well , when last working on it,

Phil got some parts online, and i picked up the rest from the Local H A Fox
Rear hub bearing set with seals, lower outer pivot pin , pivot pin nuts, pivot pin bearing set , bearing felt seals, and a castelated hub nut ,

for some reason the hub nut that held by the split pin just wouldn't undo , i got heat on it, and a two foot knuckle bar , but didn't want to force it until i had a replacement, so today with all the required bits we decided to tackle this daunting task ,

well, as it happened, the nut came undone with a fair amount of force, but without any bashing, it was done up so tight to eliminate the end float( not by me or Phil ) it was solid, but it still didn't stop the wobble on the wheel , a definite MOT fail

taking out the lower fulcrum pin we could see a lot of rusty mucky grease, the weather had got in and the bearings had failed, and actually created ruts in the bearing race in the hub body , totally knackered

a fairly easy strip down and a clean up saw the new races installed, new bearings along with the original shims , and the grease seals ( felt rings ) which were new installed after it was all greased up , wrapped some masking tape around the hub carrier to stop the bits fallen out,

then the main bearing seals were removed, and the races removed from the hub carrier , installed the new races and the seals ( went wrong a bit there as i should have fitted the inner bearing, but did that later ,when i spotted it lol )

then onto the hub its self, this is an ABS car, so the reluctor ring had to come off, simple operation with a puller and some washers to push against, then we had to remove the outer bearing which is a press fit over the stub
i know it was in vain , but i tried a puller, which as usual destroyed the old bearing cage, and left the race on the stub


so out with the disc cutter and a 1mm cutting blade, so careful cutting at 45 degs while holding it the vice and then a sharp tap with a chisel saw it moving , and when enough tapping had occurred i pulled it off with a puller so not to damage anything ,

new bearing was drifted onto the stub , and then the original reluctor ring was drifted on ,

then to the car , offered up the hub and drifted in the lower pivot pin, then moved the hub to install the drive shaft , and bugger, the grease nipple had stopped it rotating up , so removed it and offered it up again to stop this from happening,

put the nuts on loosely and went to install the drive shaft, and then the hub , put the hub nut on and,,,,,,,,,,,its loose, hmm , what have i forgot.....headscratching, idiot, inner bearing was still in the bag, lol
so , after removing everything, installing the bearing and putting it all back together again , fitted the hub nut and........its loose, hmm , what now, out come the manuals, more head scratching ( with oily hands )

finally came to the decision ,that the selectable shim against the inner oil seal was too big, the nut was bottoming out and thats what gave me the loose hub ,

luckily , the removal of the shim allowed a perfect fit for the hub and was able to set the end float with the main hub nut as usual

tightened everything up , attached the ABS sensor, put as much grease in as we could and the job was a good un,

in total about 6 hours work , so i'm happy with that for rolling around on the concrete , and the elimination of a dangerous hub

the old bearing was not an original , and was replaced a very long time ago , as there was evidence of it being cut from the hub as well , but the installer hadn't set the shim correctly , and opted for tightening the hub nut as much as he could to reduce the wobble, this with the natural wear exaggerated its self and consequently created a dangerous rear hub.....nuff said

BB

[J44EAG]

There must be a man in every industry that goes around bodging things together. How I hate him!

Working on bodged units is a nause. You soon learn that there is little previous work that you can trust to have been done correctly. Wrong fixings, fastenings and spec of various sub components. One ends up tearing the whole lot out and starting again.

Good job you know what you are doing Vince. Give this type of work to an inexperienced person and the issues could multiply further.

Well done pal. Good to hear what you have been up to.

Mike

[Phil 18]

Vince

Thanks again for all your work, the car is brilliant again. Added to it the new steering rack,
compliments of the AA.

Cheers

Phil

[Brakebuster]

no worries

enjoy the drive



BB

[poprivet]

Good work, its amazing how these jobs are never as simple as they should be.