Near side wheel bearing keeps failing

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bxbodger
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Post by bxbodger »

The heat from a binding caliper won't be anywhere near enough to melt the bearing grease.
To generate that amount of heat the disc would be glowing red after a few miles and a caliper that was binding that tightly would be immediately noticeable as the car would be hard to drive against its brakes. I know, I've been there- a sticking master cylinder on an Allegro- you'd never have thought that an Allegro could heat its discs to that extent!!!
It still didn't have any effect on the bearing grease, though.....
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Post by basil40 »

just got back off holiday - and the car was sitting there for 2 weeks and yes.... I can hear those dastardly bearings!!! I don't think the brakes are binding - I felt the alloys after blasting it up and down the motorway - they were normal temp. Tried to fit new discs but rained all day!
Something is out of alignment which is causing an obvious stress raiser on the bearings. Bearings only designed to tolerate certain loading - when that's continuously exceeded they fail, either by fatigue or catastrphic failure mechanisms.
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AndersDK
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Post by AndersDK »

I have yet to see a bearing fail because of stress or overload on a standard street car ...
It's either bad workmanship :
- dirt ingress during fitting
- wrong fitting method (hammering on the inner race)
- too hasty job (bearing not squarely secured/homed in hub)
- not correctly torqued center nut
- frayed threading on drive axle stub due to "hand-feel" torque of center nut.
or environment :
- water (& roadsalt) ingress
- fuel or brake fluid flush of bearing
Note that these bearings actually are double bearings with 2 sets of races and balls. The inner races will come apart easily during work if you are careless - thats where the bearing can become contaminated.
basil40
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Post by basil40 »

that's a grea reply. Got one disc on today - on the failing side - noticed that there is a bit of LHM leaking. Could this be causing the trouble?
one more thing - posted new item, but I noticed that I have two different drive shaft diameters - visually - so they are two very different types - can't be normal surely?
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Post by Kowalski »

Do you have a wheel badly out of balance, a mishapen tyre or mishapen wheel or the like?
Perhaps you could try swapping the front wheels left to right and seeing if the other bearing starts to fail, that would indicate that there is a problem with the particular wheel.
basil40
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Post by basil40 »

tried that. please bare in mind that I've been struggling with this problem for over two years!! I must have had that wheel bearing changed at least 10 times now.
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Post by basil40 »

Changed both front discs now with Brembos and new pads - still hearing bearing like noises. Can it really be be caliper bind?
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Post by dnsey »

I had a rear wheel bearing fail on a BX through binding brakes.
After a long journey, the bearing was literally smoking, and the grease had all run out - and the binding was only just noticeable.
So it's possible that even a slight 'rub' could cause your problem.
Perhaps you could agree a price with a reputable garage to solve the problem, rather than carry out a specific job - that way they get the hassle and expense (unless they spot the problem straight away).
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Post by sponix »

My memory is a bit fuzzy but wasn't there an "issue" with Skoda wheel bearings about 15 years ago? I think they needed to be fitted using a different technique to the norm. Most garages wern't aware of this technique and fitted them as normal, resulting in loads of premature bearing failure.
Worth checking with a Citroen workshop manual that there isn't a special procedure, specific to this car.
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Post by sponix »

Another thought is to check whether it is the correct flange/carrier for the car? It's possible that they have been replaced with something off of another similar Citroen that isn't actually compatible.
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Post by basil40 »

will check, but it's looking more and more likely that the whole of the hub carrier assy will have to be replaced.
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Post by wrinklet1 »

Basil40
the front wheel bearing is part no.3350 16
the stop-ring is - 3345 35
A question that comes to mind is- Is one or more of your spheres knackered? If the main strut sphere is 'flat', something else has to take the shock when driving and it may be either the the wishbone bush or the wheel bearing.
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Post by basil40 »

Replaced all 10 spheres recently. I think the whole sub frame would suffer and there would be differential wear on tyres.
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Post by wrinklet1 »

here is a pic of the hub assembly (thanks Citroen)
[img]<img%20src="http://www.piczs.com/is.php?i=3490&img= ... _assem.jpg"[/img]
basil40
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Post by basil40 »

Guess what???? the wheel bearing has just gone again!!!! curiously it's happened exactly as last time on a long run from Stansted airposrt and back. It was parked for 3 days and on the last leg of the journey, rump bump bump. Trouble is, I have to do the same journey again without having it seen to. I could take the old GSA!!
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