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Section : Rear Axle
Rear axle, brakes, wheels and tyres.
Posted By : Gordon Davies, 03-Jan-2003, 11:11pm
I'm getting a sort of rumbling noise from the rear end of my Spit 1500. Have checked all UJ's are OK, rear wheel bearings OK, prop. seems to be balanced as
no noticeable vibrations, exhaust OK .Noise is no worse when cornering. Strangely enough the rumble is only slightly more noticeable at higher speeds.
Rumble seems to be less noisey if I "coast" along in neutral, or dip the clutch ( this also reduces the noise of the sports exhaust so that I can at least
hear other rattles and rumbles)
Now at a loss as to what this might be.
Can anyone help?
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Posted By : William Davies, 04-Jan-2003,
10:41am
How have you managed to check the rear wheel bearings? An audible rumble is usually the only sign that a rear wheelbearing is wearing on it's axle -
physical play and roughness only becomes apparent much later.
Cheers,
Bill Davies.
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Posted By : Gordon Davies, 07-Jan-2003,
11:09pm
Bill
Many thanks for the tip, I was not aware of that. Are the bearings difficult to change and/or need special tools ?
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Posted By : William Davies,
07-Jan-2003, 11:30pm
Changing the rear bearings is one of the few jobs that really is best left to a specialist! To remove the hub you will need a special puller -
the TSSC supplies a design similar to the original Churchill tool. Using a conventional puller invariably results in a bent or destroyed hub
flange, usually still stuck firmly on the halfshaft. Having used one of the original pullers myself it is amazing how much force (viloence?)
needs to be inflicted to remove some hubs!
Having said all this, bear in mind that the bearing consists only of an outer race which runs directly onto the halfshaft. What this means is
that a worn bearing will have caused sufficient damage to the halfshaft to necessitate it's replacement by the time the worn bearing is
audible, at least this has always been the case in my own experience. So you ought to budget for a new halfshaft before starting to dismantle -
what appears to be a simple bearing change soon gets to be pretty expensive.
Rear axle work is the trade-off for all other jobs being so cheap and simple on our cars......
Cheers,
Bill Davies.
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Posted By : Gordon Davies,
15-Jan-2003, 02:58am
Bill
Many thanks for the advice. Any idea roughly how much it might cost ?
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Posted By : Flemming Jensen,
28-Mar-2006, 03:13pm
Hi Bill
"Changing the rear bearings is one of the few jobs that really is best left to a specialist!" You might be right. Never the less I have
started the job myself some two weeks ago. Using the Canley hub puller tool and a three-hook extractor for the outer bearing race. Both the
hub and the bearing race was really hard to pull off.
Do you know how one put back a new outer bearing race ? With a drift ?
best regards Flemming