<VV> Rear wheel bearing greasing options / observations

[henry kaczmarek]

Guys

I wouldn't say this thread is being flogged to death, but look at some of 
what Tony has said, just in his last post.  And this is no shot at Tony, 
he's a very good friend, and I believe what he DOES say is sage advice


 And this can get you into trouble if you're not very careful and maybe a
> little lucky.
>

> For the sake of argument, the hole shouldn't be drilled all the way 
> through.   This is just asking for trouble.

    Tapping the hole is
> twitchy, although I've used a greased up tap and managed to keep most of 
> the debris on the tap

weeping grease out the front can get
> on the brakes.

.  If you're lucky there won't be
> *any* seepage to possibly foul the brake shoes.  >

>.    But it only works if you're careful and you have a good idea of what 
>you're doing and how what you're doing does what it does...
>
> ...and, if the bearings aren't  already shot.   Greasing a bad bearing 
> won't get you very far.
>>
 I do NOT recommend trying this if you have any doubts as to how to do
> it.

> Bob Coffin mentioned having to follow up behind another shop that did the 
> hub trick, to correct problems incurred.   They (the other shop) shouldn't 
> have done it.

>  Sure, the best way is to remove and dismantle the hubs and hand-clean and 
> pack the bearings and reassemble etc.

    But you CAN
> do it to your own car and get good results without problems IF you do it 
> right...  since if it doesn't work out, there's gonna be nobody to blame 
> afterwards but yourself > ...then you can attempt to pull the old hubs 
> apart and see what fun it is to rebuild one.
>

No considering all these snips---WHY would anyone want to bother with 
this???

As many of you know, my latest "bottom feeder" job is a machine operator at 
Timken Bearing company.  I run machines that grind and hone the final finish 
of the I.D. of tapered bearing races. Tolerances for the ID Taper  between 
hundreds of thousanths and millionths of an inch.  Crown tolerances the 
same. Hollow factors in millionths of an inch. Surface finishes the same.

And someone is gonna shoot some grease in a hole, blast it in the rest of 
the way with air, rotate the hubs, and "all is going to be well"- With a 40 
year old bearing??? ---OK, if you say so!!!!  But considering the wear, I 
would love to get some of these bearing races and gage them for surface 
finish, hollow factor, ID taper and crown.   To say NOTHING of the wear on 
the rollers, the cages, and cones.

Moot argument IMO---recommendation---DON'T BOTHER--- a lot of work to MAYBE 
get it right, MAYBE screw it up, and then you don't even have a good core to 
send in/Rebuild???

Regards

HANK