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Front wheel hub/bearing

801 views 2 replies 2 participants last post by  kg6mov 
#1 ·
I did the shocks on my niner the other night (at midnight, with a day of driving in the morning) new bilsteins, really great. The shock job went fine but when I put the passenger side wheel back on I noticed I could shake it with hands at 6 and 12 or 3 and 9.

I check the ball joints and TRE's they're fine. Could tell by the missing wheel center caps and the new looking boots that the PO had done cv shafts recently. Guessing that he wasn't the torque wrench owning type I poped the caliper and rotor off and took the wrench to the axle nut.

Which came off way too easy.

I tried shaking the wheel hub and it popped right off, leaving the ball bearings exposed.

So the going theory is that the PO should be shot for not knowing what preload or a torque wrench is. I slipped the hub back together and torqued down the axle nut properly. Put everything back on, did a shake test, no more shake.

And then ran it all around the bay the next day.

So whats the failure mode when this thing dies? I get no wobble or vibration out of the front end right now, so do I need to swap this ASAP? I'm gonna do both hubs when I do the swap because they both got the PO special cv job. Probably use o'reilys precision brand, nobody around here carries tomken and a few jeepers have had good luck with precision.

Am I going to die?

Are the wheels going to fall off?
 
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#2 ·
replace the hubs, they're trash from running with the wrong torque on the nut. and also trash from being pulled apart.
failure mode in worst case is your tire takes a trip without you at 65mph and nearly totals out your vehicle.
 
#3 ·
Thats what I assumed, I'll put that on the slate for this weekend then, and I'll be driving the mean green shake machine till then.
 
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