1950s Wheel Bearing replacement 58 Eldorado Brougham

[David King (kz78hy)]

This is the 3rd time for wheel bearing  attention in this car.  I had the left front fail on the way home from the GN in Washington and did a road side repair (I carried spare bearings and other parts in the trunk) with some help from other CLC people who saw my breakdown. Hub was replaced w/new cage and inner race.  The outer was not replaced, to hard to do on the road without proper tools.

The next time was at the GN in Louisville, there was more noise up front and everything in the front was replaced again.  That brings us to today.

Left front was starting to growl again...shit what's with this thing.  I opened up and saw the issue right away, which was good so I know it will be clean kill this time.  The copper static grounder in the grease cap had been caught by the cotter pin and torn apart and into pieces.  I cleaned the hub very well and when looking at the inner bearing, there was really nothing wrong, a slight mark on the inner ID race, but it was sooth and could have been some copper, which way softer than the hardened bearings.  Rotated sooth, so I did not replace them.  The outer was another story, the inner race is toast and when I washed it out in the parts cleaner I had enough metal flake to come out to make a great 70's paint job.

The interesting part is when I pounded out the outer race and inspected, it was not really that bad.  However that race was a GM one still had the New Venture, GM part number stamped on it.  So that is the race I installed back when I put in the new bearing when the car was first launched after rebuilding everything in 2008 or so.  The previous shop did not install the new race in Louisville when they were replaced.  I found 3 different colors of grease in there as well, so it was not properly cleaned either.  I had a spare static reducer so I used that in the cap and made sure the cotter pin was bent so it would not catch it.

Now is clean, new out bearing set, and reused the inner bearing set and grease seal.

While I was there, the front brakes were not timed right, the right hand one would engage first before the left hand caught up, so a momentary pull to the right.  Annoying. So I adjusted the shoes on the left side and now there a ever so slight, intermittent rub when the wheel spins.

I think I'm ready to rock the '23 CLC Driving Tour in a few weeks now.  The A/C was addressed a few weeks ago and was working then.  The car has not been this good since St. Augustine GN.

[The Tassie Devil(le)]

Since when did these Ball Bearings come with composite ball spacers/cages?

It shows that one bearing is a NATIONAL brand, but something seems fishy about just how worn out the cups and cones are.

Plus, why is it so common for all these ball bearing failures to show up on the Message Board.   

Having driven many cars with ball bearings, and never having a problem, maybe the makers these days are not doing the "right" thing?

Bruce.

[David King (kz78hy)]

I am attributing my issue to not cleaning out the grease.  When my bearing failed coming back from the GN in 2017, we fixed the car in a rest stop, just putting in the bearing cage and inner race.  There had to be a lot of metal debris in the grease.  I knew that bearing would be temporary due to that.  I never replaced until it finally acted up again in Louisville GN.  I paid a shop to replace all the front wheel bearings and "assumed" they did a professional job.  It would appear they did not since I found 3 different colors of grease in the hub, it was never removed and wiped clean, so the embedded metal debris and a bit of copper from the static grounder did in the outer LH bearing.

All the name brand bearings I've bought in the last ~10 years have had plastic ball cages.

I did use the info from the other threads and ordered a tube of the special grease (Paragon 3000) and that is what is loaded into the this repair.

[Chopper1942]

Poor quality grease and improper bearing adjustment are the leading cause of ball bearing wheel bearing failure.  Most technicians try to adjust ball bearings like tapered roller bearings and that will guarantee failure.