wheel play not bearings

[charlie]

ok guys heres one for you. I have some up and down wheel play in my wheels kinda like a bearing. I am pretty sure its NOT the bearing or hubs I have replaced 3 of the bearing with new tappered bearings and I put the new bearings back in with locktite and they did not just slide in the hub. I have one wheel that has no play at all and odly enough its the only stock bearing left in the buggy. I also hads 4 spacers made 2" outside diameter by 1 3/8 inside I put the spacer between the bearing and the hub and torqued to spec it helped some but not like I was hoping it would. Is this just normal I find it hard to believe that I have three worn hubs or spindles were the bearing sits. There only 950 miles on this its an 09 T2 any thoughts would be great

charlie

[rocmoc]

I still say it is the hubs! Unless you machined and completed the work Lenny did, the bearing will seem OK when installed but under load will move. If it looks like you have negative camber, it is the hubs. JMHO! Someone is going to have to make an aftermarket hub replacement someday as this problem is going to creep into most of the Troopers. More so if you are running large tires with deep dish wheels.

rocmoc n AZ/Mexico

[2scoops]

I have 1800 hard miles on the stock bearings. I have one with a little play on the side I bent the steering fork on due to a hard impact. Unless it is enough play that I would consider dangerous I am not changing the bearings until they start to make noise.

[charlie]

ok so what I have is stock 14" wheels 30" zilla tires, when the wheel is off and i grab the rotor to check for play it feels a lot less, then of cource when the wheel tires are back on it appears to be a lot greater!! Just kinda blows my mind how the hub with the stock bearing L/R is tight and the others not so. I dont have any noise from the bearingsd not that I can here when driving or rotating on a jack. So should I just park this thing dig deep and get new hubs I wanna say there like 136 each then new bearings to ugh.

thanx

[Guest Lenny]

The play is going to be in one of 4 places. if the ball joints are loose, you will feel movement in the wheel. If the stems of the ball joints ball are loose in the spindle housing clamps, there will also be loosness. If the bearing is loose in the housing, the same. The final place it could be loose is in the bearing itself. I dought they are worn out already. The bearings are made using one common outter race and one common inner race. On the older cars the front bearings had seperate outter and innet bearings each with its own outter and inner race. These would be adjusted by tightening the hex nut until the bearings had the correct preload. All roller and ball bearings need preload. Think of it this way, when the roller rolls against the race, rather it be pushing into the outter or inner race, will press in and cause the race to ever so slightly deform in under the rollers loading. The roller will also ever so slightly go from perfectly round to an oblong cross sectional shape. If there is no preload, under the load of the vehicle, the inner race forces the rollers near the bottom of the bearing into the outter race at its bottom. At the same time the upper side ot the inner race is allowed to seperate a bit away from the top side of the outter race. Not only does this allow the bearing to be a spec loose on its top side but the bottom most rollers get the most load which progressively lessens as they move from the bottom up to the side of the races. Lets say that the outter race of the bearing is 2" inside diameter. The load wants to be placed on that race as if it were pushing on a line going horzontially from the right side to the left side of the race thus using the full 2" to support the load. Without proper preload, most of the load is consentrated on the lower center portion of the race and not the whole 2". Now the bearing is being overloaded in this area while still being a bit loose. Proper preloading brings the rollers into pressured contact with the races simular to what it will be under when the vehicle is normally driven. Now the the rollers are already pressed into the races on the lower side enough to support the load without pressing in farther and thus the top side of the bearing stays tight while the load is dispersed across the full 2" equally. The bearing doesn't get over loaded and it stays tight without play. A bearing is designed to run at a certain load for a given amount of time, It's something like 10,000 hours. With a double bearing that shares the inner and outrter races, the factory has to set this preload because it's not adjustable in the field. The preload is based on the 10,000 hour life of the bearing. If you double the design load on that bearing, even though it can take increased load up to a point, doubling the load cuts the life if the bearing down to the recripical of 2 squared or 1/2 x 1/2 giving 1/4 the life or in this case 2500 hours. The more you load it,the more the load gets consentrated towards the bottom center portion of the races stressing them more and shortening their life. Our Trooper wheel bearings are heavily overloaded. Not when your going straight but when your skidding sidewise thru a turn especially if you catch a berm. It's understandable that the bearings will loosen much more quickly. I wouldn't woirry about some loosness because the bearing is being loaded past its design load but this could explain some loosness. If they start to get real loose, it's a sign that theyare failing. Determine where the loosness is and go from there and if its in the bearing itself, I would just keep an eye on it.

Sorry for the long explaination, I thought it would be simple when I started but it kept going if you were going to understand what I'm trying to convey. I wish I could be more efficient in explaining something.

Lenny

[charlie]

wow Lenny thats a mouth full lol and thanx.. I am pretty sure the play is not in the balljoints but I will and can recheck it. I had my wife wiggle the wheel tire up and down while i watched and you could see the axle wheel anmd tire move as one up and down and if I held the axle at the hub you could feel it. How do you preload your bearing i had the wheel off a large pry bar between lugs to stop the spinning and my wife holding the breaks torqued the axle nut to about 90 ft lbs. Like i said with the wheel off the play doesnt seem as bad but with everything together I just feel like it should be better. and it concerns me. This is all being done with wheels off the ground vehicle not moving. I do work on cars and if this was on a automobile I would be concerned and the vearing would probally be loud. But on a car or most the the axle goes threw the bearing and outer hub all as one wich is much better. Lenny if you can you could callme I could maybe explain it better 508 789 0870 Im in ma its 1235 pm in the afternoon here now

thanx charlie

[Guest Lenny]

Here is a link t pics of my Trooper. I've since added an enclosure.

http://outdoors.webshots.com/album/582381211HVROHH

Lenny

[charlie]

Lenny I looked at a lot of your pics of you're trooper that is Awsome!!!!!!!!! The roll cage is incredible the fenders are cool to I bet you stay clean lol. Seeing that defiantly gives me motivation for mine. Thanx for all your advice today on my trooper, I took those spacers out like we talked and put them in front right behind the axle nut and torqued to 100lbs or so and to the next hole. Made quite a bit of difference in the front wheel/tire the right rear it helped to I'd like to see it tighter but I will keep an eye on it! I think the rest of the play is from the splines on the wheel hub and axle splines maybe little from the bearing.

ANYWAY THANX A LOT