Front wheel bearing loose and then not loose and then loose again..

[gs.davies]

I jacked up a front corner this morning to attend to the valve clearances and as I turned the wheel I noticed a lot of slack in the wheel bearing.

The bearing in question is the one that had to be fitted in Switzerland on the way down to last year's IMM, and so I'm surprised it's acting up again. It's a similar type of failure to the last one that gave so much trouble, tight sometimes if you turn the steering wheel, but a few turns of the road wheel and its loose again. Certainly not consistently loose.It's not making a noise though whilst driving, at least not yet. Driving in reverse will elicit a lot of clicking until the brake is pressed. I also get a lot of brake squeal from that side once the car's done a couple of miles which may or may not be related, but if there's movement, this presumably would heat the brakes up, making any squealing worse?

The bearing fitted on this side is a genuine Timken and was fitted by someone that did know what they were doing (I hope!) and so I'm largely ruling out a fitting error. What's concerning me is two failures in the same place with similar symptoms. The hub itself was a new part, could it be that this is machined out of tolerance leading to a misalignment of the two sides of the bearing?

The drive flange is/was a brand new 7" Cooper 998 type, and as the CV is the drum brake type, it wasn't tightened to the full 150lb or whatever it's supposed to be.

I'll try nipping it up for now and see if that helps, but I suspect something more is going on and short of just slinging a third bearing in it until I end up doing the Cooper S brake swap, I wonder if anyone here has any suggestions?

[Polarsilver]

Many years ago i learnt my lesson re front wheel bearings on my Reliant Simitar .. tightened the front wheel bearings up only "just a bit" .. some Miles later my 4 wheel Reliant became a 3 wheel Reliant because the Bearing had seized & the stub axle sheared off .. that Reliant used Triumph very small dia; stub axles.. (irrespective cant see a mini cv shaft doing that).. can i suggest that before you adjust the bearing loading.. strip it all out & check what is going on in there..also check the Taper Split Washer is not scored up = piece of mind.

[Peter Laidler]

Here's my response regarding the is it loose or not bearing.

Car jacked up. Mark a point on the tyre with chalk. Turn tyre mark to 12 o'clock mark. Is the bearing loose then - or tight?
Turn to 6 o'cl. Loose then - or tight?
Turn to 3 o'cl. Loose then - or tight
Turn to 9 o'cl. Loose then - or tight.......

If it is tight at certain points it indicates to me that the cone or cup bearing surfaces are not even or that the cup part in the hub is not sat square. It could be by a few thou or so. Sadly, it means taking the hub and bearing apart again...... Absolute cleanliness and assembly on the dining room table

(The 998 brakes don't have a taper split washer as I recall. But to my mind, and I've said it before, that taper washer is fine because it accurately centred the hub. But why it is split is a total mystery because the split means that at some point during the nut tightening, the split collar opens up..... and ceases to be round! Defeating the object!)