<VV> Rear wheel bearing greasing options / observations

[Tony Underwood]

At 09:22 hours 02/17/2005, henry kaczmarek wrote:
>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


...Snips snipped...



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



It's a helluva lot cheaper than buying rebuilt hubs.   And many Vair people 
tend to be:

A:   do-it-yerselfers who know how to work on a car

B.   cheapskates



>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??? ---


The ones on my '65 ragtop did.   Still smooth and quiet after all those 
years following the grease trick...  about 15-16 years now, if I recall 
correctly.   I've done others... none came back on me.



>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.


Sometimes you'd be surprised.   When I split the rear wheel bearings on my 
'60 4-door (the one with almost 200K on it) I looked at the races closely 
and they were as bright and clean and shiny  as a new dime.   Likewise the 
rollers.  There was still some working grease in them...   I cleaned and 
regreased them anyway.




>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???


Like I said...  it's your call.   If you feel up to it, do it.   And if you 
do it right, it DOES work.

The ticket here is to do it *right*, mostly common sense.   And, it 
perpetuates the spirit of the old-world hotrodder who always did things his 
way and made it work.

And, if you do NOT feel confident about doing the hub greasing yourself, 
there's Lon, Cal, etc and their refurbs.    Whip out the wallet and go for 
it.



tony..    cheapskate by default and necessity