While this didn't happen on my Bricklin, it is worth sharing.
Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures - stupid me! Because
this would make a good article for The Brickline.
A couple of days ago, Leigh - one of my son ScottE's buddies came
over. He wanted to jack up his car (a 99 Honda Civic SI) and check
his rear bearings. Apparently ScottE had been out with Leigh, and
mentioned something about the rear bearing growling. Well the 2
boy sat down in the living room and we started talking about it.
I asked Leigh how long this had been going on. He said about 9
months!
I told them that I don't ever remember a bad wheel bearing that you
could feel on the car. They asked about being able to wiggle the
wheel on the bearing. I told them, that if you could wiggle the
wheel on the axle, that his was in for big trouble. I've seen this
a couple of times.
Once when I was in college, a friend asked me about his TR3 and why
his front wheel would be leaning out. He brought the car over, and
we pulled the wheel and the pieces of the inner bearing fell to the
floor. The bad part about this, is that the inner part of the bearing
got dry welded to the stub axle due to the heat. Luckily, this was
when there were a lot of TR3s around and a friend had a sports car
shop, so we were able to get a replacement stub axle cheaply and quickly.
The other time was a few years ago, when a neighbor came over to ask
if rotors were supposed to wiggle. This fellow does not work on cars
but does very nice wood work. I don't know why he decided to tackle
a brake job on his wife's car. Anyway, I said they can. Let me come
over and take a look. Well, it wasn't his rotor. It was his entire
rear hub (on a front wheel drive car). I told him that his bearing
had failed. We could try and fix it, but in my experience, when the
bearing is this bad, he would need to replace the axle. He put the
wheel back on the car, called a wrecker and had the car towed to a
shop. It ended up costing him quite a bit of money to have the axle
replaced and the brakes done.
Continued
John T. Blair WA4OHZ email: jblair1948@cox.net
Va. Beach, Va
Phone: (757) 495-8229
48 TR1800 48 #4 Midget 65 Morgan 4/4 Series V (B1106)
75 Bricklin SV1 (#0887) 77 Spitfire 71 Saab Sonett III
65 Rambler Classic
Morgan: www.team.net/www/morgan
Bricklin: www.bricklin.org
If you can read this - Thank a teacher!
If you are reading it in English - Thank a Vet!!
|