HUGE figgen bummer

[Longhorn Man]

Heading into work yesterday, pull out of the gas station lot, turn on the stereo, and as soon as I do that, i feel a metal to metal grind through the steering wheel, and hear this gawd awfull squeel. Talk about p!ssed.... I pull over and look at it, pop the bearing cover off look at the dust that used to be outer bearings. jack it up and flop the whhell back and forth and pretty much figure the hub is junk. limped it to the shop (about 4 more miles) at a record setting low rate of speed (slow is always a record for me) and on the way, I'm at a light and this guy beside me in a turbo cummings dodge shuts off his engine and yealls to me asking about the price (got a big @ss for sale sign in the back window) and asks for the phone number. Cool, another bite.
So I go a little further, and pull into a stop and rob lot to look at it again and make sure it'll make it since the next road has no practicle place to pull over...about a 2 mile streach in an industrial area. I hop out, and bigger than poop, there is Mr Cummins... (turns out after 5 min of looking, he wants it...just needs to pry the cash out of the wife's hands...his words, not mine)
I make it to work, pull the wheel and hub off, the spindle is fine, and to clean it up a bit, but the hib is in fact junk....but have you ever seen a bearing race do this? between the boss's 35 yrs, shop foreman's 30 years, and a couple 20 year mechainics...adds up to over 100 years experiance, and NONE of them have ever seen this happen in a light duty aplication...esp with no warning signs.
I was so p!ssed I was ready to toss this sucker (the truck...not the hub) into the creek behind the shop.
No joke...I had NO signs at all untill moments before it happened. no rumbling, no slop...nothing.
just as it all looks good, it al goes into the crapper.
I guess it coulda been worse, I coulda lost the spindle and totalled the truck.

[N2TRUX]

Nope can't say I have ever seen a cracked race. At least the up side is you got a possible buyer...

[Longhorn Man]

Actually had a few in the past 3 days, but no one is writing any checks yet. One guy offered me a POS camaro...no thanks. Have a few skid marks from ppl stopping as they fly by here. (they do about 45- 50 on my street)

[cdowns]

well i just hope this will teach people not to turn on their stereo when pulling out of a gas station!!!

[70ChevyLongbed]

Sorry to hear that... I've got some 'sounds' comming from the back wheels that I need to look into... I hope I catch whatever it is before something like that happens. Good Luck!

[Deuce]

Originally posted by cdowns
well i just hope this will teach people not to turn on their stereo when pulling out of a gas station!!!

I'll never do that again!!

[Hotrod70C10]

Originally posted by cdowns
well i just hope this will teach people not to turn on their stereo when pulling out of a gas station!!!

Yeah, lol.... shame on you.

[Jeepster376]

Well, same thing happened to me on Tuesday, after putting $30 worth of synthetic oil in my rear on Monday. No warning signs at all, had I had a warning I would have fixed it when I had it apart on Monday. Only since GM decided to save a nickel by deleting the inner bearing race, the $20 bearing will never go without killing the $100 axle it rolls on. I didn't even try to limp it home, at first sign of trouble I pulled right over and had it towed home. And I still have to get a new axle.

Now to boot, while I'm waiting for my axle, driving my cherokee, my fuel pump quits as I'm heading to work going about 70 in the high speed lane on the freeway.

Twice in one week I get to ride home in a wrecker.

[theo70]

Just one more reason for me to worry...the CPP drop spindles I have didn't come with inner or outer bearing races. I called them and asked about it, and they said they didn't need them. I'm still a bit paranoid about it, as I haven't got it on the road yet, and don't want to go through what you did, or something similar.
Sorry to hear about your situation, Longhorn Man.

[69 Short Fleet]

Thats not good, what kind of stereo was it (LOL), regards Doug

[neonlarry]

I had that happen on mine too. No real warning, just spun the bearing race in the hub. It wasnt that long after I got the truck either. One way to tell that something like that is about to happen is if you see any grease thown out onto the wheel. At least they arent to hard to change. lol

[72 CustomCamper]

Hey Andy, I've never had one split like that, but I have had one seize(sp) up on the spindle...

Chuck

[COBALT]

That's amazing. I don't think I've ever seen one break that cleanly. Usually they'll heat up, deform, and then get twisted up... Possibly a flaw in the race that propagated to the edges once enough heat was introduced, or a particle of something introduced a weakness...glad everything is ok with the truck though...could have been worse.

[Jeepster376]

Originally posted by COBALT
glad everything is ok with the truck though...could have been worse.

Could have been raining

[Longhorn Man]

Well...the truck IS still sitting at the shop, no hubs locally.

[>X<]

that looks like the bearing that we took out of the rear of my friends honda 400 ex 4 wheeler, except it looked that way because we cut it with a dremil to get it out! that is weird, glad your truck didnt get totaled. i had a wheel come off last year because lugs were loose and i just dented the fender a little.

[Duallie]

I have seen one of those. I happened across a friend of mine in his F350, and his Dana 60 had just gotten real loose. He pulled over and the hub was SMOKIN hot. Looks like the race had been spinning merrily away until enough of the hub was gone that it wouldn't support the load and POW! I hauled him to NAPA and got $400 in parts and tools and still had to shim the race with two bands from some hose clamps I had with me.
He's having some trouble finding a 79 F*&d 60 hub, so he plowed all last winter with it anyway!

[dwaite72lnghrn]

Lets see 35 years and it breaks and you are complaining. Jeeze. just joking you are lucky you didn't turn the radio a little later when you were really moving. By the way don't change the radio station you don't know what it will break next. When is the Longhorn on the road?

[Cat Fuzz]

I had a front bearing commit suicide on me suddenly. No warnings. The inner race of the bearing welded itself to the spindle and I had to cut it in 3 places with a Dremel and knock it off with a punch. At least your spindle is ok. Mine was kinda messed up as well as the hub. I havn't replaced them yet since I'm waiting for the k-member from a 73 'burb and didn't want to spend money on something I'm replacing anyway. I've been lucky so far and it hasn't given me trouble yet.

[Longhorn Man]

Actually, this truck eats bearings for some reason...no idea why, I have done bearings on everything from small GM cars like my old Monza and a friends Chevette, all the way to 70 ton M-1 tanks and all kinds of stuff inbetween...everyday on Freightliners and macks...but this truck just don't wanna keep bearings. This is the 2nd hub i have replaced, and probably the 5th set of bearings...lost a spindle on one back on new years of '01.
The longhorn....well, the sooner I sell this thing and have a little cash in my hands, the sooner the Longhorn will be up and running.


Went to Urbana last night and fine 69 jumped through his @ss to help me out....I'm back on teh road again.
Thanks Mike.

[Jeepster376]

Ooh I hate that. Some bearings are difficult when you try to make them good, others last forever when you ignore them. Something of interest. doing my bearings this week. (still waiting for axle) I noticed my old bearings were marked Japan. Didn't think too much of it but I made sure the new ones were USA, But then when I looked at the new USA and the old Japanese bearings, I noticed the Japanese bearings had much smaller diameter and width rollers than the Americans. Then looking at the wear pattern on the axles I can see the narrower wear track in the middle of the wide pattern from the previous USA bearings. So lesson, beware of light duty foreign bearings.

[Longhorn Man]

Would you believe the replacement ones from NAPA were Japan bearings? I was kinda surprised on that one.

[Jeepster376]

Strange cuz I got my bearings at NAPA too, but they are USA.