Jbomb

So the other night I ran over a small sidewalk less then 5inchs off the ground I would say. as I was driving home i heard what sounded like metal dragging against something so i immediately pulled over and checked it out, didnt see anything hanging/damaged so headed home as the sounds continued. Today I was going to drive it to the auto mechanic to take a good look and I saw some damage i over looked at night.

Outside view



Metal ring found




See near the bottom of the drum there is a gap/offset



Good side for comparison




So what you guys think?

Falcopilot

WOW..........TOTAL outer wheel bearing failure!! At least that what it appears like to me.

I can't imagine what that sounded like while you were DRIVING it!!!

CPTCO

Lucky your wheel didn't fall off last night. Hopefully didn't hurt the axle too.

Jbomb

Okay so i will have to tow it out but my building has an under ground parking garage and I don't think a flat bed tow truck will come in (clearance), will one of those small front wheel tow truck cause any damage or anything i should worry about?

MnemonicGhost

Not nearly as much damage as you could cause to the hub driving without a bearing

68dustin

$20 part and about 40 mins to fix... hope it didnt mess up the spindle.. sometimes its good to grease those things...lol..

Firstgothenshow

I wouldn't drive that beast 2 feet, they have dollies that lift from the tire so the car can roll out without rotating that wheel. If you drove that home I'll put money on it that your hub is bad where the outer bearing's outer race resides. looks for sure that you need a bearing grease cap, both inner & outer bearing assemblies, a new grease seal & cotter pin.

The previous thread wrote about ensuring the bearings are greased, well a correctly greased bearing will die a quick death if the retaining nut is over torqued! Look at the outer race, it has become magnetized, as I believe is due to an excess amount of friction & under greased not by the blunt force trauma of a curb

jlg2002

Since this is a drum brake car, and it's obvious that the outer bearing and race have disintegrated, you will at a minimum be looking a new hub inner and outer bearings, a new seal,new bearing cap, & press-work to get the drum removed from the hub (the wheel lug bolts are staked to the drum to keep it on the hub). Potentially you may also need a new drum if you wan to keep it staked to the new hub, and I'm concerned about the inner race being welded to the steering knuckle shaft which may necessitate a new knuckle. As long as you go slow it should be OK to drive to put on the tow truck

dklistul

A 5" curb is a pretty good hit if you had any momentum.

Change the bearings and races in BOTH hubs; who knows whether or not the other side is much better than this. This spindle and hub might already be toast but you won't know for sure until you get the old parts disassembled.

And make sure everything is correctly greased (not a lot of visual evidence of recent grease in those pictures) and if you don't know the technique, RTFM about how to torque the nut.