Rear wheel bearings

Ken/Alabama

Ken/Alabama

Well-known member
A friend called me over this morning to take a look at the rear wheel bearngs on his 39. The end of the axle housing on both sides are worn very bad on the bottom side where the load is. The bearings look fine and there is plenty of grease in the hub. I have never seen this kind of wear on these races before,you can feel a good 1/16" ridge on the bottom half of the race/housing end. They are original and never been replaced. The rear axle was rebuilt and this wear was not there when it was rebuilt. It has 16000 miles on it.Now the only fix is to remove the housings and have new bearing races installed . Could the wrong type grease cause this? the grease he is using is moly grease for disc brakes. I know that it does have a higher melting point.
 
FlatheadTed said:
Ken If there's no ware on the rollers then I would say its not the grease ,You can turn the housing over.
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Only on '35/'36 can you switch the housings side to side which gives you a fresh bearing surface.

Did the bearings show the grease had been getting to them, ie, are the seals letting the grease go up inside the housing the other way?

Paul J.
 
I just pulled the cluster gear idle shaft out of a 32 transmission and found the same wear you have found with these axle housings. The bearing over the worn area of the shaft did not show any wear. I believe in my case as well as yours that someone else was there before us and did a partial repair. In your case it is possible previous repair men never looked at the bearing surface on the bottom of the housing.
 
Terry said:
I just pulled the cluster gear idle shaft out of a 32 transmission and found the same wear you have found with these axle housings. The bearing over the worn area of the shaft did not show any wear. I believe in my case as well as yours that someone else was there before us and did a partial repair. In your case it is possible previous repair men never looked at the bearing surface on the bottom of the housing.
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I am the one that rebuilt that rear axle .I have rebuilt many of them over the yrs but have never encounterd this problem.That was about 4 yrs ago, there was definitely no signs of wear when it was assembled . I had those axle housings cleaned at the Redi Strip in Jackson Ms., I wonder if that could have had an ill effect on those bearing surfaces.:confused:
 
Ken/Alabama said:
I am the one that rebuilt that rear axle .I have rebuilt many of them over the yrs but have never encounterd this problem.That was about 4 yrs ago, there was definitely no signs of wear when it was assembled . I had those axle housings cleaned at the Redi Strip in Jackson Ms., I wonder if that could have had an ill effect on those bearing surfaces.:confused:
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The chemicals used in their stripping process will most definitely weaken the bearing surfaces especially if there was any areas the chemical could seep beneath the finished surfaces.
I had a set of housings ruined in this method.
 
Most modern wheel bearing greases use a sulfur compound. When this gets wet, the compound breaks down and the sulfur combines with water to form sulfuric acid. This then degrades the load surface. This was not a problem with the old "long strand" grease.

There is grease specifically made for boat trailer wheel bearings with calcium complex used instead of sulfur. This is what I used on my wheel bearings.
 
Ken, would guess that if you used modern grease that is the problem. I did the same thing several yrs ago and trashed my housings. I rebuilt the rear end and am using STALUBE sl3131 which you should be able to get at any real auto parts store. If you found gray residue in the grease that is what I found and my bearings looked grea but they were original Ford.I have put several thousand miles on the rebuild and everything is fine.If you decide to repair your housings be sure to buy good quality races sleeves and have the housings ground on a crank grinder because the housings must not have any runout.
Regards, Don
 
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