rear wheel wobble - wheel bearing?

AndrewT · Post by **AndrewT** » Tue Nov 24, 2009 7:12 pm

Pretty sure this is some kind of problem with a rear wheel bearing but just wanting a few opinions before I pull the bastard apart.

On MonsterWagon I'm getting this problem and have narrowed down the source;
- Quite noticable shudder through the car, seems to be coming from the rear
- Occurs only between about ~85km/h and ~105km/h, dead smooth driving the rest of the time
- Have jacked the rear end of the car off the ground, stuck it in 5th to make the rear wheels turn, gotten out and had a look, the rear left wheel is not running quite true, there is a barely noticable wobble but its definitely there
- Took the wheel off, you can see the brake disc not turning quite true, the wobble is not lateral, more an up and down motion (so I guess that's unlikely to be a brake disc problem - there is no pulsation of the brakes on slowing down either)
- It's not the wheel spacer, took that off, same difference
- It's not the wheel or tyre as you can see it happening with the wheel off
- Swapped rear drive shafts as the drive shaft itself also seemed to have abit of a wobble, new driveshaft doesnt move anymore but the wheel wobble is still there

I'm very much thinking it's something to do with the wheel bearing, what else could it be?

The rear wheel bearings were brand new when I installed the Crossbred kit quite a while ago...but admittedly it's had hardly any driving at all since the install.
I didn't notice it when I was running AWD.
Now it's running RWD only and with 29" tyres I think this is the reason I'm noticing it. Anything slightly out of balance at the rear I'll definitely feel now as it's all kind of amplified.

What could I have done wrong with the bearing? From memory I didn't have any difficulties putting it in, everything is done up nice and tight (the 36mm castellated nut etc).

wrxer · Post by **wrxer** » Tue Nov 24, 2009 11:23 pm

i reckon youve done a pretty good job of isolating the problem.
wheel spacers add extra load to wheel bearings because of the additional leverage.
is there slack in the bearing.

AndrewT · Post by **AndrewT** » Wed Nov 25, 2009 12:53 pm

yeah I know wheel spacers + the larger wheels are going to flog the bearings out faster that's why I put brand new ones in. Not alot I can do about that really. I don't think the bearings are worn as they've had very few kms and not even really any offroading yet. It's gotta be something to do with the way they were installed.

There doesn't appear to be any slack. With the car suspended on jack stands I can grab the wheel and shove it in all directions and can't detect any slackness, or clunk or anything like that.

bluesteel · Post by **bluesteel** » Wed Nov 25, 2009 1:33 pm

bent hub or stub axle?

AndrewT · Post by **AndrewT** » Wed Nov 25, 2009 2:26 pm

Hub i doubt it...well I sure hope not....it's a brand new Crossbred one which hasn't really even seen any offroad action, and probably less than 4000kms.

Stub axel possible, it's an old L series one. I swapped entire K frames for one from a 1993 wagon which had spent all it's life on the road. But perhaps the previous owner smacked a curb really badly.

I'm thinking maybe swapping K frames again. I have the one from the RX sedan which didn't seem to have this issue. Will just take abit of work to assemble all the Crossbred gear on it and swap over.

bluesteel · Post by **bluesteel** » Wed Nov 25, 2009 2:51 pm

could whip the hub off the stub axle and see if it still wobbles, or if its too small a movement to tell, try swapping hubs over?

oh and just coz somethings new, dont rule it out!

AndrewT · Post by **AndrewT** » Wed Nov 25, 2009 5:57 pm

Will do. Yeah I know new stuff can still be rooted, altho with a wheel bearing usually theres at least some noise! There's nothing with this, dead smooth apparently.

jrettenmayer · Post by **jrettenmayer** » Tue Dec 01, 2009 5:25 am

Bent wheel perhaps?

AndrewT · Post by **AndrewT** » Tue Dec 01, 2009 10:16 am

nah not when the wobble is apparent without the wheel on the car.

Waiting for some time to be available to me to swap K frames now.

YouTube · Post by **El_Freddo** » Tue Dec 01, 2009 3:43 pm

To rule out the hup swap it over to the other side. I bent a front hub and only found it when I did my front bearings - I happened to run the motor in gear on the jack stands just to see what it'd do... That's when I found the front left wobbling away.

I'd also check the stub axle while the hub is off, run the motor as you have been and you'll see wether its running true or not

Cheers

Bennie

twilightprotege · Post by **twilightprotege** » Fri Jan 29, 2010 6:41 am

my car just started doing this on my way to work this morning - did you work out what the problem was?

AndrewT · Post by **AndrewT** » Fri Jan 29, 2010 9:02 am

no I haven't yet. Have obtained a replacement K frame, just need time to rebuild all my brakes, hubs etc into that and swap it over.

twilightprotege · Post by **twilightprotege** » Fri Jan 29, 2010 10:32 am

did the shuddering get better or worse since you first posted this?

AndrewT · Post by **AndrewT** » Fri Jan 29, 2010 12:45 pm

Havn't been driving it much but when I was no, it remained the same. I think I stuffed something up when installing the bearings.

twilightprotege · Post by **twilightprotege** » Fri Jan 29, 2010 12:50 pm

well at least that is ok. so long as i dont have to change over the bearings NOW i'm ok. the car comes off the road again in 6 weeks for even more surgery so if i can last until then i'll be happy

RSR 555 · Post by **RSR 555** » Fri Jan 29, 2010 2:31 pm

AndrewT wrote:no I haven't yet. Have obtained a replacement K frame, just need time to rebuild all my brakes, hubs etc into that and swap it over.

Come on Andrew.. your old car is going to be back on the road before you change this over

btw, the Leone is looking good

after stripping it to the shell, we have had the carpets/seats shampoo'd and they look great. swapped over the wiring harnesses and the EA82T is going back in this weekend

should have started a thread and taken heaps of pics for ya

AndrewT · Post by **AndrewT** » Fri Jan 29, 2010 3:16 pm

Mate I haven't even swapped the rear tailgate back over, it still has the bent one. No time at all.

Re the Leone, Awesome

Gotta be the only Leone in history going from EJ20turbo with EJ-AWD back to EA82T with EA-parttime. The "purists" will love it!

twilightprotege · Post by **twilightprotege** » Fri Jan 29, 2010 4:33 pm

on the way home, the shudder had gone! well i couldnt notice it anyway. on the way to work when i noticed it, i had the windows up because it was raining. on the way home it wasnt raining and had only the drivers window down. hmmmm.....

RSR 555 · Post by **RSR 555** » Fri Jan 29, 2010 11:27 pm

AndrewT wrote:Mate I haven't even swapped the rear tailgate back over, it still has the bent one. No time at all.

Re the Leone, Awesome
Gotta be the only Leone in history going from EJ20turbo with EJ-AWD back to EA82T with EA-parttime. The "purists" will love it!

As Marty McFly's headmaster would say... SLACKER

Well as you know there was nothing EJ20T left in the Leone except the bits where you had made the massive holes to fit bits it... hahaha all good, just get a kick from it everytime I see the EA to EJ conversion bits.