Bearing failure

[hb32]

After 2 months of work to get my 55 in a condition to pass safety here in B.C., my gf and I decided to take it to a local Friday night cruise in. We got a couple miles from home and there was a lot of noise coming from the front left wheel. Managed to limp it home, pulled the left front drum and this fell out.

No damage to the spindle or drum and the discs with tapered roller bearings will be coming sooner then I thought.

[dwcsr]

Thats the problem with ball bearing in the front failure rate is fairly high as far as bearings go. Your lucky the wheel didn't come off.

[Coupeguy2001]

usually you have to pull them every couple years and change the grease. That is paramount for their longevity. The bearings are around $20 here in phoenix. I can remember when they were six bux.
be sure to torque them 33 foot pounds.

[dwcsr]

Originally Posted by Coupeguy2001

usually you have to pull them every couple years and change the grease. That is paramount for their longevity. The bearings are around $20 here in phoenix. I can remember when they were six bux.
be sure to torque them 33 foot pounds.

The end torque is not left at 33#. The book says for all hub mounted ball bearings under 2.5 Ton you do an initial torque to 33# while turning the hub then back off to the next cotter pin hole. So you may end up at 10# or 7 # in actual end torque which is more in line with normal bearing preloads. If you leave it at 33# you'll burn that bearing in a week. Turning the hub while torquing is important so you don't create a problem called False Brinelling or Brinelling and damaging the bearing before it ever hits the road. You can google False Brinelling to see what it is. I know most of you have seen the end result of False Brinelling or Brinelling and just not known the technical name for it. It does happen a lot with radial ball bearings and taper roller bearings.

[Dan in Pasadena]

That's FUGLY. It reminds me how unreliable and potentially dangerous those old bearings can be.

My '55 still has ball bearings. I recently checked them and they are nicely and fully greased. I have a brand new disc brake setup for it that I scored for it off CL from someone who gave up on their project... but...I can't install it because the cam in my 283 is so radical it develops no vacuum so I can't put a power booster on it ...yet. The PO put that cam in it and though it sounds nice at idle it isn't helping the engine any. Not sure what cam I'm gonna repalce it with but it'll be a lot more mild

[Coupeguy2001]

Go back and re read the maint. manual. on ball bearing mounted hubs,(LCF and two ton models) back the bearing off to the next cotter pin hole. On LCF and 2 ton models with tapered bearings,

[dwcsr]

Originally Posted by Coupeguy2001

Go back and re read the maint. manual. on ball bearing mounted hubs,(LCF and two ton models) back the bearing off to the next cotter pin hole. On LCF and 2 ton models with tapered bearings,

Mine is still bigger and I can pee further

[Wrenchbender Ret]

A brg. failure like that is strickly poor maintainence. If a guy raised the wheels up & spin them he would have heard this brg. about to fail. Like coupeguy says, if you service them ocasionaly they will last a long time. It is recommended to switch to rollers if you are going to disc brakes.

[hb32]

Originally Posted by Wrenchbender Ret

A brg. failure like that is strickly poor maintainence. If a guy raised the wheels up & spin them he would have heard this brg. about to fail. Like coupeguy says, if you service them ocasionaly they will last a long time. It is recommended to switch to rollers if you are going to disc brakes.

Plan is to switch to rollers when I order the disc conversion. Meanwhile the truck is parked until I complete the rest of my mods, T5 is going in today along with an HEI distributor shortly there after.
In my case, it looks like the garage that did the inspection, was not aware of how to properly install the drum assy after removing it. I exported the truck from the US into Canada and it required a provincial inspection to register it.