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Curious on wheel berrings

Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2018 5:08 am
by audiocontr
As mechanical as I am in my 40 years of shade tree, I've never replaced wheel berrings. I know I have a variable pitched "whirring" that cycles from the front of one of my haflingers. I'm not sure if it's the berrings, but I figured there is no harm in replacing now that it's 50 years old. (FWIW, I've checked all fluids in the front drive train)

Are haflinger wheel berrings easy to acquire? Any tips on what to look for?

Re: Curious on wheel berrings

Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2018 9:26 am
by TechMOGogy
I purchased mine from Dale at Haflinger Technik
http://www.haflingertechnik.com/html/in ... el%20drive

While everything is currently apart, I still have not actually changed the bearings. Had to purchase a different puller to reach in an get one set (there are a few sets of bearings as you know)

Re: Curious on wheel berrings

Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2018 6:22 pm
by Heinkeljb
If you apply some heat to the castings with a hot air gun and get the casting nice and hot round the bearings, they should come out without any problems. Try to have the new bearings to hand so you can put them in whilst the castings are still hot. This means having either "proper" bearing drivers or at least the correct sized socket which you can hit with a hammer!

Yes, I know you should use a press with the correct bearing drivers, but not everyone has that sort of workshop and you don't actually need that sort of equipment to change the bearings. The technique of using a socket and a hammer has worked for the last 100 years, so there's not reason why it won't work now.

The blind bearing is the only one which might give you pause for thought, but even if you don't have the proper internal bearing puller, you can get it out by heating the casting, then using a suitably large screwdriver, put it in under the bearing and lever it up a "little" bit. Move the screwdriver to the opposite side, and do the same. As long as you keep the casting hot the bearing will come out with repeated levering.

Whilst you have the whole hub apart, are you going to replace the oil seal sleeve on the flange shaft No: 66 & 32 in the picture? You can get that apart by applying heat the surface the oil seal runs on. When you get so hot it starts to smoke, it will suddenly "pop" as the rubber "O" ring inside expands and forces the sleeve to move.

Also a good idea to replace no: 68 (a strange double lip oil seal) - this it the one that leaks and dribbles differential oil all over the inside of your wheel.
Hub fill bolts.jpg
Hub fill bolts.jpg (81.15 KiB) Viewed 5992 times
John

Re: Curious on wheel berrings

Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2018 1:17 am
by Garrycol
As John has indicated you dont need to any specialist tools - just a big mallet, a mid size puller, a big screw driver to prise things, a socket set and spanners etc - common to most home workshops.

Now you may very well have a dud wheel bearing but they run in oil not grease so they rarely wear out. Maybe there is a dry CV or as was the case of my Haflinger it was a dud bearing in the front diff that is causing your problem.

Working on the hubs is not difficult but when disassembling you really do need to record where each bit to the jigsaw goes. Also with the front hubs you will have the hassle of taking out the king pins which can be an ordeal in itself.

If you are not on TheHaflinger.com go over there and search through all the posts - many of us have been through all this many times and it is all documented there often with pics.

In fact if your search there for my posts and Johns posts in about 2012/13 you will see threads by both of us doing this sort of stuff.

Good luck - just go carefully and record where stuff goes.

Garry

Re: Curious on wheel berrings

Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2018 7:35 am
by audiocontr
Thanks all.

Double check my logic please as im not positive its a berring.

I have two haflingers. One does this, one does not:

There is a higher pitched brrrrrrr sound that rises and lowers while traveling at a constant speed. It almost sounds The pitch doesn't change at the same rate as acceleration, but i say that as it seems to be a ratio of rpm, and not directly proportioned to the rpm. i.e. the pitch at 20mph isnt half of what it is at 40mph. (yes, confusing concept). It reminds me of drive shaft vibration when they are slightly out of balance.

I'm most concerned of major drivetrain issues as this haffie seems to have more rolling resistance than my other. It might be something as simple as the speedometer cable ://

Re: Curious on wheel berrings

Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2018 3:48 pm
by Heinkeljb
In which case, you have a fair amount of investigating to do in order to work out what's wrong.

Get all four wheels off the ground.

Spin each wheel in turn, would be good if you had either a proper mechanics stethoscope or at least a nice long screw driver stuck against your ear whilst someone turn each wheel in turn. Differences in sound between them should point to the problem wheel / bearing.

You can also do the same thing for the main drive shaft, front diff, rear diff, hubs etc. For those items which you can't turn by hand, then run the engine of tick over and put in various gears and try the listening trick again on everything.

I take it you know how to set the wheel bearing play / preload? if you do, check each wheel hub.

If you have never done this task before, then it is quite tedious and there is an explanation in the workshop manual. If you need further explanation of how to do it, post either on here or on TheHaflinger.com and I can go into more depth.

John