<VV> Grease LM Rear Wheel Bearings

[Robert Henry]

No, the shaft was the only thing that didn't break. 

I was taking the car to the shop for my dad. He'd been ignoring growling sounds for weeks before deciding to take another car to work and get it looked at. Driving it to the shop, I had stopped at a light and when it turned green I started to pull away. Suddenly the car started to lurch sideways, drop, screech, and smoke. I stopped in the street, there being no place to pull off. The left rear wheel was tilting inward at a crazy angle, the wheel well resting on the tire (accounting for the smoke), supporting the car. If the shaft hadn't been there I don't think the wheel would have come to rest any differently since the U-joint flexes at that point. I shudder to think what might have happened if it had occurred at highway speed.

I had it towed to the shop. They complained about the difficulty of finding a replacement hub assembly and chewed me out for letting it go that long (though it wasn't my fault). The accident had broken the outer edge of the bearing carrier, ruining it. I think it also damaged the backing plate. Even if we care nothing about potential loss of life, at least we should have some consideration for preserving hard-to-find parts.

Years later when I took over the car to restore it I repacked the bearings. Even though it had been only a few years since the shop had done the repair, I found one of the bearing cage bars had broken off and had gouged out the race as it was pushed along by the roller. Fortunately, at that stage replacing a bearing race was a whole lot easier and cheaper than replacing the entire hub. Simply squirting in extra grease won't fix problems like that.

That reminds me, I think my bearings are about due for another teardown now.

Robert Henry 

Sent from my iPad

On Nov 27, 2011, at 9:34 PM, Matt Nall <patiomatt at aol.com> wrote:

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> I had a wheel fall off the Corvair, an event which sparked this 
> fanaticism. It's important. Just shooting in more grease doesn't deal with the 
> possibility that something could be dangerously wrong in there.
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> Robert Henry 
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> You had a LM / 65-9  rear axle stub break???
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> First one I've heard of!  Commpn EM  problem...
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> Matt Nall
> Charleston, Oregon
> http://tinyurl.com/The-Patio
> http://tinyurl.com/Matts-Tech-Pages
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