Bad wheel bearing?!

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Mopar69gts

Mopar69gts

FABO Gold Member
FABO Gold Member
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Location
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Hi all
Last week my 69 dart started making a loud howling growl inside the car.
It was hard to tell where it was coming from.
After putting it on a lift to check it over I spun the driver's side wheel and it was noisy.
Took out the wheel bearings and found small shreds of metal on the inner bearing.
Cut it apart and found the inner race torn up like this?
Has anyone seen this before?
These bearings are only 2 years old..
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How much grease was on them and how tight was the axle nut?
 
Mopar69gts said:
Hi all
Last week my 69 dart started making a loud howling growl inside the car.
It was hard to tell where it was coming from.
After putting it on a lift to check it over I spun the driver's side wheel and it was noisy.
Took out the wheel bearings and found small shreds of metal on the inner bearing.
Cut it apart and found the inner race torn up like this?
Has anyone seen this before?
These bearings are only 2 years old..View attachment 1715603913 View attachment 1715603914 View attachment 1715603910 View attachment 1715603910 View attachment 1715603911 View attachment 1715603912
Click to expand...
yep it happens, usually from lack of grease, or being too tight, or a bad seal that left water in.
 
Loggato said:
Looks like the original casting was too small.. or maybe just wasn't quite center on the mill
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I guess anything's possible, just weird to me that it would spin smooth for 2 years then decide to eat itself last week?
And only tear up a almost masked off small part of the race?
Was thinking more like a hardening process problem?
 
No way to tell at this point. Could be a bad bearing, could have had some fragment left over from a previous repair that got into the bearing and ruined it. They're not expensive, so, just get another, inspect the spindle and hub well, clean everything up, grease it good (and the outer bearing) and put it back together again. Since the outer bearing was ok (correct?) it's unlikely the nut was too tight. The outer bearing is usually the one to fail first when that happens, but, take care in tightening the nut. Personally, I don't put preload on the bearings. I find they last a lot longer (in fact, I've never had one fail that I've installed new) if you don't go any tighter on the nut than what you can do with your fingers. Just make sure everything is seated properly first. I mildly tighten the nut with channel locks or a crescent to make sure, and then back the nut off to finger tight.
 
cudamark said:
No way to tell at this point. Could be a bad bearing, could have had some fragment left over from a previous repair that got into the bearing and ruined it. They're not expensive, so, just get another, inspect the spindle and hub well, clean everything up, grease it good (and the outer bearing) and put it back together again. Since the outer bearing was ok (correct?) it's unlikely the nut was too tight. The outer bearing is usually the one to fail first when that happens, but, take care in tightening the nut. Personally, I don't put preload on the bearings. I find they last a lot longer (in fact, I've never had one fail that I've installed new) if you don't go any tighter on the nut than what you can do with your fingers. Just make sure everything is seated properly first. I mildly tighten the nut with channel locks or a crescent to make sure, and then back the nut off to finger tight.
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Yep I agree
I already replaced both bearings last night.
The spindle was fine too.
I just posted the bad bearing to see if anyone had come across a similar failure.
Thanks for all the responses.
I really thought it was my new transmission going away...lol
Thank God it was just a bearing!
 
My guess is that the cage was damaged at some point, maybe during seal install, or had some fragments somehow got in there / not cleaned out well.

In all my years THE ONLY wheel bearing failure was that an inner race 'ate' itself play into the casting itself in one of the rotors of my 70RR THAT was a head scratcher for a bit
 
Well I guess I'm the only one that thought it was strange the way this bearing wore only in one perfectly proportioned spot on the inside race.
The rollers are fine, the outer race is fine, the grease wasn't burnt and smelly...etc
I work on boats and trailers for a living
And have replaced hundreds of wheel bearings
Over 35+ years and never have I seen this type of failure before.
Lots of dead bearings from lack of grease, water intrusion, no maintenance...ect
And they always fall out in pieces or everything is worn evenly.
I like to find out what happened in what I'm working on out of curiosity if nothing else.
I'm still interested after all these years...lol
Got a call into Timken I'll keep you all posted.
Thank you fabo!
 
I have to agree, with preload the bearing should demolish itself evenly. With a line dividing the good/bad i would say bearing failure due to improper manufacturing.
 
Yeah, some good old American bearing companies (even Timken) are now made overseas. You would hope they have the same quality control, but, sadly, that isn't always the case.
 
Mopar69gts said:
Well I guess I'm the only one that thought it was strange the way this bearing wore only in one perfectly proportioned spot on the inside race.
The rollers are fine, the outer race is fine, the grease wasn't burnt and smelly...etc
I work on boats and trailers for a living
And have replaced hundreds of wheel bearings
Over 35+ years and never have I seen this type of failure before.
Lots of dead bearings from lack of grease, water intrusion, no maintenance...ect
And they always fall out in pieces or everything is worn evenly.
I like to find out what happened in what I'm working on out of curiosity if nothing else.
I'm still interested after all these years...lol
Got a call into Timken I'll keep you all posted.
Thank you fabo!
Click to expand...

Probably just a bad area on the original metal, like some slag that got in the iron mix. Timken is a good brand of bearings and USA made, pop in a new one and don't look back.

My first thought was they were Chinese, now there you have a real problem. Way out of spec wheel bearings and fail like in 100 miles . . .
 
I havent done a ton of bearings, but I have never seen a bearing failure of any kind like that. Send pics to mfg see what they say, even for curiosity sake.
 
Wow. I have never seen that. Get the corporate address for Timken and mail it to them with a letter saying it was properly installed and greased, how about a replacement. Then, if you get one, you'll have a spare. For the few bucks it will cost, I'd do it just for fun.
 
Ok well
This morning I received a response from Timken
Screenshot_20201002-084439_Gmail.jpg

I was Happy they took the time to look at the pictures I sent.
And to get back to me quickly.
Still may never know exactly what happened but that's ok too..
I've seen lots of wheels come off trailers going down the road when they lost a bearing, and I suppose that could happen on a car like mine with drum brakes all around just like most older trailers.
(No disk brake caliper to keep it from coming off.)
So I will keep a closer eye on them from now on.

Carry on, hope you all have an Awesome Day/ Weekend!!
Mike D.
 
Mopar69gts said:
Well I guess I'm the only one that thought it was strange the way this bearing wore only in one perfectly proportioned spot on the inside race.
The rollers are fine, the outer race is fine, the grease wasn't burnt and smelly...etc
I work on boats and trailers for a living
And have replaced hundreds of wheel bearings
Over 35+ years and never have I seen this type of failure before.
Lots of dead bearings from lack of grease, water intrusion, no maintenance...ect
And they always fall out in pieces or everything is worn evenly.
I like to find out what happened in what I'm working on out of curiosity if nothing else.
I'm still interested after all these years...lol
Got a call into Timken I'll keep you all posted.
Thank you fabo!
Click to expand...

I have seen that a few times and wrote it off to the race getting chipped and the damage traveling on the more it was run.
Awhile back I replaced my rotors with new and they came with the outer races already installed.
Not knowing who made the already installed races I didn’t want to run my new bearings in them, but I made the mistake of asking about it on here.
Most everyone told me to just use them with the new bearings.
Nope, couldn’t do it.:D
I knocked them out and installed the new races that came with the new bearings.
 
That happens when you run a bearing which was badly scuffed.

Some of the rollers probably wore tracks in the mating surfaces due to vibration in transit when the part was new. I think it is called "false brinelling".

I have a couple new bearings with deep tracks worn in the outer cup and inner race. Of course, this is impossible to detect visually when it occurs on the hidden inner race.
 
I took out the wheel bearing on a pontiac after it started making noise, it completely fell apart in my hand. But it was also a lot older than 2 years.
 
I had my left front SBC disc outer bearing go out, it made a growling sound driving. I got a new made in China bearing and replaced the old made in China bearing, what a deal!!
 
All I can say is I've had quite a few 9" drum cars through the years and I've never had issue with keeping wheel bearings under them. So I have to disagree that somehow the smaller bearings are prone to problems. I've just not seen it. But that said, I also am pretty particular with keeping my rides up too.
 
RustyRatRod said:
All I can say is I've had quite a few 9" drum cars through the years and I've never had issue with keeping wheel bearings under them. So I have to disagree that somehow the smaller bearings are prone to problems. I've just not seen it. But that said, I also am pretty particular with keeping my rides up too.
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All I can go by is my 32 years in the auto recycling business. I can count on one hand the brake hubs with the A2 outer bearings that I sold for spun races, compared with the hundreds of A1 hubs I sold.
 
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