Wobble solved finally

[swade]

My car had a slight front end wobble since i purchased it. I have sorted out all the other small things and it was time to address this. Even though the standard check for wheel bearings showed no movement I purchased new wheel bearings for a "while i am in there" replacement. Had the new tires re-balanced this was not the culprit.

Left front:
Pulled the wheel and put a dial indicator on the hub and it was out by .007" the brake disc was also way out. Looked through Pelican and found a note from John Walker and another from Steve Weiner that hubs could be bent from over enthusiastic pneumatic impact wrench wheel nut tightning. JW suggested knocking out the studs and chucking the hub in the lathe and straightening things out. Which I did, new brake disc and pads... straight as an arrow.

Right front:
Dial indicator shows .002" at hub and .001" at disc. Great! I will just change out the bearings, disc and pads and be done with it. When I disassembled the brake disc I found 2 shims between the hub and the disc. Mountain Dew can shims. Probably the only Mountain Dew shims in Norway. Hub in lathe, cleaned up, disc, pads and now everything is good.

When they stop salting the roads I will take her for a spin and seat the pads

W

[garment]

The error here was incorrect soda can selection. Everyone knows Coke is the real thing.

[Chuck.H]

Not to be pessimistic (BTW, to the engineer, the 'glass' is twice as big as necessary) but how can you be sure it's solved if you haven't driven it? I'm jut saying I'm not sure you can feel .007 runout, but it's good to clean it up if you can.

Just curious, what did you use to clamp the hub into the lathe? You want to clamp on the bearing races if that's what you want to 'true' to.

Your shims reminded me of the 'Zen and the art of MC maintenance'!

Chuck.H
'89 TurboLookTarga, 428k miles

[theiceman]

what exactly are you doing when you put the hub in the lathe ? did you happen to take a pic ?

[1979-930]

I bet he just used a brake lathe and mounted the hub with the cones. Then remove one side of the disc brake tool and let her rip.

[swade]

I turned 2 small arbors to mount the bearings on, I chucked one of them and centered it in my 4 way chuck and used the opposite side in the bearing and on my live center, once i had trued up one side i flipped the assembly around and cleaned up the other side.

[Oneredspyder]

Hello, I have a 86 911 with 86,000 mi. I have been plagued with a loose feel in the front end for ever. I jacked the car up last fall and noticed the both wheels had some looseness that should have not been there. Isolated the bearings. I just replaced both bearings and found that they were "touched" before which surprised me. Upon more investigation found that the method of tightening the clamp bolt at the end of the hub does not cinch the wheel up tight enough get rid of the looseness. I added another washer under the tabbed washer which solved the problem. I would like to note that there is an excellent you tube video on line that instructs how to do this job, however they did not replace the races of the bearings. This is a big mistake. If the bearing is worn so is the race, and the race is matched to the roller bearing. Also my brake flex lines were hard as rocks so I replaced those also. Any thoughts. My thought is to drive the car about 100 miles and take the jack the car up , and take off the grease cap and check the play and also the position of the clamp bolt which I marked. Do they turn? I do not know.
Any thoughts?

[DaveMcKenz]

The other way to approach runout is to re-clock the rotor on the hub. You might get lucky.
Good luck,
Dave

[T77911S]

(fact). my shake is from flat spotting the tires.

[swade]

I was finally able to take my car out for a spin to see if the wobble was less than before and I am happy to report that it is completely gone, no slow speed "shimmy" and no pulsing of the brakes.. very happy about this.