How free should they spin???

braol

braol

Senior Member
Well, I'm finally doing the clutch job in my '31 Tudor I promised this summer! Things are going swimmingly: After only about three hours of work I got everything disconnected and am ready to pull the suspension out the back. (Pictures forthcoming...)


Big question though: After I jacked-up the back of the car I went to spin the rear wheels to check for balance or any rear wheel bearing grinding. There is no grinding BUT the rear wheels are anything BUT free-wheeling. Is this normal? I know that the rears are just a regular roller bearing and not a tapered pair of bearings like the front. Perhaps the rear brakes are adjusted too tight....? I will be adjusting brakes after suspension is reinstalled after the clutch job so perhaps I'll find out. I was just shocked that the rear wheels don't just spin 'round and 'round like the fronts do. Maybe some clearance(s) in the rear end/differential are wonky???
 
Where did you jack the car up? If you jacked it up by the frame,so that you could drop the rear out of it,what you have is normal.When the rear end,or the front for that matter,is hanging from the spring it will pull on the brake rods a little.That's why you can't adjust the brakes with the car on most lifts.
 
Ahhh, HA!!! Ford Barn to the rescue! Thus the lack of free wheeling but no audible bearing grind. It 'felt' like perhaps the brakes were slightly dragging....
 
Got to pull the pins on each rod on each side (4 pins). How tall are the jack stands ? Need to be quite a bit taller then the small ones that are so common. Likely have to remove the wheels, depending on the stands.
 
Also, on the front you are just spinning one wheel. On the rear, you are spinning two wheels (one backwards), the diff, the driveshaft, u Joint, and some of the trans gears
 
If you do not know the history of your rear end, since you will have it out anyway, now would a good time to take it apart to inspect it. I just rebuilt my '29 Tudor's rear end, because the splines on one of the axle shafts was bad and, therefore, I needed to replace one of the shafts. The other side's axle shaft keyway was mushroomed out a bit and, so, I need to hammer that back into shape, as well. When I took the rear end apart, I found a broken pinion gear tooth and a main pinion gear bearing which was not seated properly and was spinning on carrier. These problems were not evident (The rear end was not making any noise.) and, so, I was lucky that I needed to take it apart, as these issues would have given me trouble down the road. When (and if) you take it apart, be sure to determine the number of gaskets used on each side of the banjo, so you can put the same ones back exactly the same. If you end up replacing the bearings though, you will need to re-setup the bearing pre-loads, so the old number of gaskets will not necessarily be used on the new setup.
 
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