Club 80-90 Forums

Hi Guys news on here,

I've got a 1990 GL Caravelle, with the usual rear wheel bearing housing play.

Has anyone successfully sleeved them to accept standard bearings or know of any oversized bearings available? Or is it a case of replacements?

Cheers

Ben

Buginabox wrote: ↑22 Jan 2021, 17:15 Hi Guys news on here,

I've got a 1990 GL Caravelle, with the usual rear wheel bearing housing play.

Has anyone successfully sleeved them to accept standard bearings or know of any oversized bearings available? Or is it a case of replacements?

Cheers

Ben

This is a post of mine on that subject but you can see more on the wiki:

I have always been able to detect a small amount of play in rear wheel bearings and although it doesn't seem to have worsened I have finally failed an MOT on it together with a few more easily doable stuff.

I did have to change the obviously noisy and failing o/s rear several years ago and even afterwards did still detect a small amount of play on the brand new bearing/s which I put down to an accumulation of tolerances together with the magnifying effect of the radius of the wheel and tire.

I would obviously not in any case wish to proceed at risk of catastrophic failure or steering difficulties but seem to remember reading that a small amount of play was almost inevitable due to design of the hub Assembly. The play is more or less equal on both the replaced and what could be the original side.

I am just wondering if anyone else has been so afflicted and whether any relevant documentation/recommendation is/are available on the subject.

PS Yes I did use the calibrated scaffold pole/13Kg human so as to achieve the correct torque setting 

E D I T 
Sorry folks Second time checking Search got me a load of related quotes. "Please do try to concentrate young Master Bean"
Anyway I did find some stuff from Aidan and Mocki about C3 bearings and the allowance for expansion when heating up.
A quiet word on the side (with the MOT tester) fixed that but I guess less enlightened owners regularly get lumbered with unnecessary expense and post MOT depression.
They had me going for a moment.  


 

What mileage is everyone getting on the original factory fitted rear wheel bearings ?

multisi wrote: ↑24 Jan 2021, 11:04 What mileage is everyone getting on the original factory fitted rear wheel bearings ?

Over 400,000 km.

multisi wrote: ↑24 Jan 2021, 11:04 What mileage is everyone getting on the original factory fitted rear wheel bearings ?

Wow! Bit of a hard one to answer l suspect. Unless one has fitted OE many moons/miles ago.
My first 1986 T25 camper was bought in 2007. I did 60K in ten years ownership. The back wheel bearings always had very slight and equal play in horizontal and vertical pull and push movement. Never worsened throughout my ownership. Never even checked them for grease.
The MOT tester at an old skool Morris Minor garage understood the set up. He had a 1990 Westy.
Choose your MOT tester with care.

There is a bit of movement in the horizontal and vertical by design. As the bearing expands as it gets hot. I have had to explain this to MOT people before now.

It was designed with some play , it’s supposed to be there .
 

Buginabox wrote: ↑22 Jan 2021, 17:15 Hi Guys news on here,

I've got a 1990 GL Caravelle, with the usual rear wheel bearing housing play.

Has anyone successfully sleeved them to accept standard bearings or know of any oversized bearings available? Or is it a case of replacements?

Cheers

Ben

It’s not usual to have bearing housing play, it is usual to have bearing play, they were built from new with play , take it for an hours drive and see if there’s any play.

If your tester tries to fail them on this slight movement, then they need to be informed they are C3 clearance bearings.

multisi wrote: ↑24 Jan 2021, 11:04 What mileage is everyone getting on the original factory fitted rear wheel bearings ?

175,000 on Edna's offside one, 2.1 MV Syncro, 50k miles of my use including a lot off road, the nearside was about 145-150,000 miles
I could tell they were original because of the bearings being genuine but also the bearing houses were still sealed to the trailing arms with factory plastic underseal, I don't know if that is specific to Syncros for certain markets, Edna came from Southern Germany, alpine region, non difflock specified for use in snowy area, I usually ran 205R14Cs on road, 215/75/15 MTs off road, 20mm lift

Just to give an update,

I ordered new bearings from brickwerks, measured the OD, and housing bore Dia and checked for out out of round, happy with my measurements being within limits of 660, I used loctite 660 with applicable activator on Installation.

I'll post back after some miles with results and findings.

-Ben

Loctite 638 "high strength retainer" is the usual weapon of choice. No activator required. It will fill up to 0.2mm iirc which in bearing terms is a massive gap at these sizes.