Mechanic punched my hubs! %@#(&$

[Pillow]

Disclaimer: I am pissed so sorry for the rant...

Okay, I take my very nice condition '85 944 hubs to the local Porsche shop that my 911 normally goes to since I know they have done me right in the past. They say that knocking the bearings and races out is pretty easy and should take an afternoon.

Three days later my hubs are ready, not a big deal but kind of disappointing.

When I pick them up the guy says it took 40 minutes to get the races out... Hmmm, WTF is so hard about races? I just nod and accept it.

Now to inspect the hubs... Those b@stards just plain old used a long punch to beat these races out!!! Not a press like I expected. Needless to say there are blemishes that I need to sand out with emory paper from where they got sloppy and dinged the race mating surface!

To add insult to injury the cost was $68!

If I want to F up my d@mn hubs I could have beaten them out with a punch at home! For FREE!

When I was in the shop it was not such a big deal... But the more I stew on it the madder I am getting about it.

Am I paying for some dope to learn? 40 minutes my a$$!

Any insight on how long this should take and the PROPER procedure for removing 944 races? There were no prior dings in the race mating surface after years and years of use so there has to be a better way...

Thanks,

[drew1]

I think you are susposed to heat the hubs to 300 degrees F before pressing races in & out.

drew1

[Chigger]

I took mine over to a friends shop and we drove out the old an drove in the new in about 5 minutes using a bearing driver. It looks like a rod with a washer bolted to the end. The washer is chosen to fit the bearing. Any shop that does brake jobs should have one. JC Whitney even sells them.

[Pillow]

I cross posted this in the 911 forum as well since the hubs are very similar:

http://www.pelicanparts.com/cgi-bin/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=62065


Thanks,

[drew1]

Pillow,

Thanks for the link.

Difference between 911 & 944 hubs: Bearings are same but there is a difference between wheel & disk mounting distance from bearings.

The bearing guys discription in the link sounds like the procedure in 924 Shop Manual for 5 lug hubs.

drew1

[dberkstr]

Hey Pillow,

Sorry to hear about your hub problem. You need to let the Porsche shop know you are dissatisfied with their work. Ask them for an adjustment on your bill.

I bought my 944 from the OO who had all his work done by "professionals". Stripped screws, improperly installed parts, evan a failure to tighten the transmission drain plug, leading to very low fluid on a freshly rebuilt transmission! My opinion? An unfortunate number of these guys are hacks. I am a better mechanic than some of those guys, and I'm just a motivated amateur.

[944 LT1]

I just did a brake upgrade and installed new bearings at the same time. I've always used a long punch to knock out the old races. Then take the old race, turn it over, and use it to knock in the new one.
Here are some pics of recent work. Turbo Brakes, Front coil-overs, caster-camber plates.

[ChrisBennet]

I figure someone may come across this post while they are doing a search so I thought I would mark this "landmine" for the next guy. The bad news guy is pretty much all of us have already ruined our hubs...
This is from an old Rennlist post I think:

Front Wheel Bearings

Wed, 31 Jan 2001 23:53:24 -0500

Author: "Bruce A. Carr"

Subject: Front Wheel Bearings

Body: Stop! You guys are killing me!
If I hear one more "whack it with a hammer", to get the
front bearing races in or out, I'll have a heart attack
and die. You don't want that, do you?
Here's the deal.
With SOME cars, you can just whack out your wheel bearings
with whatever is handy. Like your old Chivvy Caprice.
That is NOT the case with your precious 944.
The only proper way to remove the outer races (the thingie
parts without rollers) from the hubs is to heat the hubs up first.
Then the only proper way to put new ones back in is to heat
the hubs up first (and, if needed, use a real bearing press with
real tools and which pushes straight).
If you do it any other way on these cars, you might as well
just FedEx your entire credit card collection to George B. and be
done with it.
Okay, you might get away with whacking them once, but that
method WILL take tens of thousands of miles off your hub life
(not bearing life, the hub thingie they're mounted in).
Here's why.
Your hubs were engineered and machined ONLY for the bearing
outer races to be removed and/or installed by first heating the
hub. The reasons for this are quite numerous, but mostly they boil
down to the types of materials used, the press fit needed, the
size "set" the outer race takes, and the "roundness" that has to
be maintained. It's all messy, so just believe me and we'll go
on from there.
Here's what happens when you don't heat the hubs and just the
outer races in and out with a nail punch or something similar. When
you whack the race out of the hub, you're actually moving material
in the hub...that's not designed to be moved. We're talking
thousandths of an inch here where the hub is completely ruined...
nothing you can see. Oh, and you'll make it egg-shaped by a couple
tenths of thousandths, to boot. Every time. You can't help it. Since
even the worst POS bearings are made to hundred-thousandths
tolerances, this is not a Good Thing.
If you whack a new bearing race in, you're doing the same
thing, except in reverse and maybe a bit straighter this time...
but don't count on it. You'd be surprised what's happening down at
the thousandths-of-an-inch level when you're in the garage trying to
eyeball it with a sledge and a piece of driftwood.
Okay, even if you only do it just once, the press fit is gone,
destroyed, gone forever, never again what it is designed and machined
to be. We're not talking the whack-in, whack-out liberties you
could take with your old Chevy Caprice...this is a genuine German
engineered thingamajig and machined to tolerances Chevy never
heard about until they started taking apart German cars.
What are the consequences, other than the bearings no longer
running true (also not running precisely parallel to each other, a
whole 'nother topic (called cranking) for another day)?
Sooner or later, and MUCH sooner if you log any track time,
the outer race (probably of the inner bearing first) will start to
turn in the hub.
At that point, there isn't anything you can do except call
George B. or one of the other guys, tell them you need new hubs and
beg for mercy from Visa.
The reason those hubs are so expensive? Well, besides that
they're carrying Porsche part numbers...the extensive and exacting
machining work, especially to...you guessed it...the areas where the
bearings press in.
So the ONLY proper way to do the front wheel bearings on your
944 is to take the entire unit to someone who will heat the hub to
the right temp, pop the outer races out and pop new ones in, all using
the proper tools and such. The hub should be allowed to cool down
slowly and evenly, sitting on a shop bench is fine, as long as it's
not in a breeze that would cause uneven cooling (i.e. warps, stress
risers, and so on.)

Personal Story: My car had one side front wheel bearings done
by the PO, and they used a press but no heat. When I did all of the
bearings 40k later at 100k, we found the hub with the original bearings
was right on spec, but the one they worked on is borderline. It'll
last another 40k-50k or so on the street, but I had to put it on the
passenger side so I could run DE's at Mid-Ohio.

I saw one post here where the fella said the outer race was
scored, but new inners were used anyway. There isn't even space to
go into why I'm pulling my hair out. Just one: the rollers in that
bearing can easily be whacking that high/low spot about 100 times a
second. Guess how long it takes to cause a failure at that rate?
And, no, you can't mix and match bearing parts. Every manufacturer
(and even every production run) has all the angles, finishes, backface,
etc., etc., just slightly different. Mix manufacturers, and it's
likely your inner and outer race angles can be off by a degree or more!

Okay, enough preaching. I will remove my robes now.

Bruce A. Carr
eBearing.com
88 944na OH BBLURR
74 X1/9
71 510
91 Accord

[porscheguy1]

wacking them in and out is fine, jesus, it IS a chevy bearing!
that's right ,machined down to towlerances of a 55 chevy

[todwic]

What you'll need:
1 Duncan Hynes cake mix of you favorite flavour
1 of whatever the box tells ya you'll need to mix in with the other mix.
1 oven preheated to 350 deg.
2 hubs
2 new bearings and races
Directions:
preheat oven
Throw yer hubs in oven. or if you like your oven, gently set them in
mix the edibles as directed on box
Pour into your favorite pan (I like bunnys)
in about 45 min take out hubs (they may be warm)
set oven to temp spec on box
Knock yer races out with a G.D. Hammer, it's a car fer crissakes, not a puppy dog. If your carefull you won't touch the mating surface with your punch/chisel/screwdriver/nail just make sure they come out evenly
Use a socket that mates up well on the edge and tap the new race in
retrieve cake and hid it in the garage
ask wife why she left the oven on
finish your job and enjoy a slab of cake during your test drive

I accidently intalled one of my races in backwards, guess I was thinking of cake. If you do this, you'll really wish you had not.

[porscheguy1]

a race driver works well for install,at least that's what cooter from hazzard county tells me

[todwic]

I wanted to be a race driver

[bogomili]

I used to want to be Cooter. . .
Well, I really just wanted to date Daisy.

[bigyagi]

i dont think i'd trust the shop to do the job properly {heating the hub}. most would use small press, and put them in dry.
possible short-cut, for the shadetree mechanic, would be to get hold of some "dry ice", and leave the bearings in there for about 1-2 hours, then press them in. same as heating up the hub, except the intense cold of the dry ice, will make the bearings about 0.002, to 0.004 thou smaller, thus allowing them to go in easily, without removing any material.
i do this with phospher bronze/ steel plain bearings, and ball-races should apply as well. good luck!