Very hot front wheel bearings

[toomanytoys]

Nice one.. he'll have to make a claim against his supplier/disc manufacturer... not your fault... Doesnt get your holiday back though does it...

[CycloneMike]

I thought the spec for new discs was
Early 278 x 13mm
Later 258 x 16mm
So not sure where 15mm fits into it?

[Cafnod]

Hi John
Glad you got your van fixed and sorry you lost your holiday.
Trouble with inspecting old discs is that they will be worn and miking or verniering them up wont help much.
One thing that was not suggested that I did wonder about was the lubricant in the bearings. Years ago I had to go out to recover one of our coaches on the motorway, both front bearings had failed due to a faulty batch of grease, that cost the supplier VERY dearly.
There is no way you are liable for the cost of wrongly supplied and fitted parts, in fact the people who fitted them should be offering you recompense for your holiday.

[billy739]

E D I T
One thing that was not suggested that I did wonder about was the lubricant in the bearings


ref


personally also i would make sure he has used the correct grease with a high melting point ideally special wheel bearing grease, if its normal stuf it will turn to oil when heated!

[Cafnod]

Exactly my point Billy, I was wondering if thats why the grease was running out and the bearings getting so hot. I have only ever had one batch of faulty grease but have come across people who do not know better using the wrong type.

[Red Westie]

Still can't get my head around this....
As an experienced mechanic myself I would suggest that he would have had to force the pads in to the calipers and being as though these were oversized discs any fitting issues would have been blatantly obvious?
Also...to be honest, discs are very rarely TOO THICK! rather, OEM (non genuine) pads often have too much friction material (as in: wider than they should be)
My point is..either way it should have been completely obvious to the mechanic that the pads were TIGHT! so why did it take so long for him to realise.
Pads/discs don't expand that much when hot....they MUST have been tight when assembled and the expansion due to heat theory just does not wash with me..sorry!
Besides....the amount of friction material we are talking about here (in order to give clearance: pad to piston) could have easily been taken off by rubbing each pad on 100grit emery for 20 seconds.
This whole episode is a no brainer as far as I am concerned.
As for grease....even high melting point stuff will turn to liquid very quickly with overheating brakes.

Side note* were the bearings checked after all this for overheat damage (blueing etc)? was the grease all cleaned out and re-packed? as it should have been.
Martin

[Cafnod]

Martin I agree that there should have been fitting issues, however not being there, not knowing the motor engineer(?) in question who did the work it is always difficult to suss these things out.
I suspect he thought, when he found tight pads that the pistons where not seating fully and decided things would sort themselves out after a bit of driving.
A lot of so called engineers do not like working on older vehicles. I worked at a place where they had a prize one. I just told the foreman to put older stuff on my sheet, the customer either loved the vehicle or it was all they could afford and they deserved it being treated properly IMHO.
I would aslo be concerned if the wheelbearings had suffered from overheating/starvation of lubricant, at the prices garages charge now cannot afford to pay for their mistakes, perhaps John should get this checed, possibly by someone else.

[john davis]

Thanks for your comments....I'm really brassed off by this garage, it's pefectly clear that they don't want to deal with this vehicle again (not that I ever would!) and, to be honest, I'm not sure I trust that they've done what they say they've done to deal with the issue....I drove 175 miles on Fri and discs were getting hot again. Might follow up suggestion of getting them independently checked.
John