wheel bearings

[mickmick]

I promise i have looked for this in the wiki

and on the forum

and looked at haynes manuals for other cars


but its a job i have never done before on an elan (or any other car that i can recall)

so, does anyone have a good walk thru talk thru, inc pictures of how to change, not check, the rear bearings

and also, what work can be done to the fronts as i get an interesting high pitched squeak from my left side that goes away when i apply the brakes(so yes it could be a brake probelm), but can the bearings be checked/changed/repacked??? and if so, how do we go about it??

lots of questions, lets hope for lots of answers

Mick

PS, i now have a job, so i'm being a bit sneeky and sending this from my works PC

[Specky]

It's a straight forward job Mick for the rears...

wheels off...

release the brake manually...

hubs off, including tapered roller bearings

drift out bearing races carfully

insert new bearings carefully

Rebuild

TTFN

[dapinky]

Just what he said!

From start to finish - both sides changed in an hour!

(never done the fronts, though, so can't offer any advice on them - i don't believe there is any maintenance you can do - it's a replacement job.

[bobbrown]

The fronts are very similar to a lot of the front wheel drive cars out there,
It is an angular contact brearing with two sets of balls and is sealed.
To replace it you have really to remove the front hub, so thats main drive shaft nut, upper and lower ball joints, trackrod end and brakes.

Once off you will find some large circlips holding the bearing in place these need to be removed and the brearing pressed out and the new one pressed in and it is tight.
If you take the hub and bearing to a small garage or some where that has a press they will usually do this for you for a few beer tokens.
A trick used in the past with these is to knock the inner halves of the bearing out of the way and clean the grease out of the bearing. Once that is done run a couple of beads of mig weld around the inside of the bearing wait for it to cool and it will fall out.
DO NOT press of hit the new bearing when fitting it on the inner half as you can damage the running faces and the balls

[RayD]

Mick,

They have the rear wheel bearings at Bullseye in Mexborough.

The Vauxhall Carlton 78-86 Kit LBK 8030, contains…
KLM 11710 (11749 on inner race) Daewoo MGM
KL 45410 (KL 45449 on inner race) Daewoo MGM
Seal 40- 52- 5 -7

Detail on the box
OEM
BRT = BRT 553
QH = QWB 155C
TEC = Kit 086
VEC = VK424
Bar Code 5 012641 109665

Let me know if you need a hand...I'll gladly pop round when you do them.

Ray