<VV> Re: Opening a LM axle bearing and a Can of worms

[Rick & Janet Norris]

Terry,
I did the Zerk fitting mod to my new bearings on the V8 Vair as prescribed 
in the Tech Guide. I pumped in grease until it came out the seals. I have 
never had them apart as the V8 car doesn't get a lot of miles. One thing I 
did notice is the amount of grease that oozes out, especially the first time 
they heated up. I inspect them several times a year and every time I have 
had a fair amount of grease inside the hubs and some on the brake shoe which 
isn't a problem as I run a set of original Velvetouch linings. I would not 
do this mod again.

Rick Norris

> Here is my recent experience:
>
> Son of Black Tooth developed a noisy rear wheel bearing (crunchy) 
> recently.
> With a little free-time in the hobby shop I picked out the best pair of
> Ultra LM rear hubs and pulled them apart for inspection and repacking. 
> The
> second hub had been drilled and had a grease zerk installed. With all the
> opinions bantered about on VV about this practice, I thought this might be 
> a
> good chance to check the theories out.
>
> What I found on disassembly was:  a good quantity of fresh grease in the
> center cavity . . . none of which even got close to the tapered bearings
> which had a smattering of dried out grease left on them.  In this case not
> enough grease had been put thru the zerk to be effective.  The only way of
> making the zerk method work that I could see would be to clean the 
> assembly
> and put it back together without the seals.  Then you would need to count
> the pumps of your grease gun required to pump grease until it started 
> coming
> out the bearings into the area that the seals normally occupied.   Once 
> the
> count was made then you would pull it all apart and replace the seals.  At
> this point you have done the same work as repacking two rear wheel 
> bearings.
>
> Pulling the rear hubs apart was not that difficult.  I use the factory
> tools, but others have used gear pullers and a small press to accomplish 
> the
> task.  It would not be difficult to create the two bolt jacks that the
> factory uses to press the spindle out of the housing.  Has anyone else
> pulled a grease zerk equipped rear hub apart? What did you find?
>
> Terry Kalp