Wheel Bearings

So Gus has been faithly transporting me to and from work as my Daily driver.

Been a little cold and harsh over the winter.

However I have been keeping him on the road with a few things.

Firstly - Wheel Bearings

So he has always been noisy when driving. Initially it sound like the nearside rear wheel bearings biut slowly has developed all over noise related to speed.

Purchased a set of front and rear wheel bearings.

So jacked him up on each corner and rocked the wheels top to bottom (12 to 6 o'clock)

Found the rear wheels are okay BUT the fronts have a amount of movement. So decided to change the front bearings.

Was quite glad as the rears on a swing axle require a special puller (I finally found a puller kit which might work if and when I do the rears)

So here are the Hubs, discs and bearings with the wheel off:

So once removed and cleaned and inspected you can see that they are starting to wear - Probably not enough to replace BUT while I was here I put new bearings in just to be safe.

So everything went well on Nearside BUT disaster struck on offside!

Stupid bolt had been over tightend by previous owner and when I went to tighten it back up it BREAKS!

So on a Sunday I tried to find an M7x20mm (1.0mm thread) BUT guess what. No one sells M7!

So I had to get a new clamp nut which comes with the bolt from VW hertitate ASAP.

SO bolted the wheels on and took for a drive. Found that wheels where clashing with the brake calipers!

The calipers had already been ground down and the rear side of the wheels but not enough for correctly adjusted wheel bearings. So out with the grinder and a quite skim off and all sorted.

While the wheels where off changed speedo cable as it was starting to whine.

Then I noticed that the steering damper has come off the pitman arm. Looks like it had just popped out where the rubber bush goes through the arm. Pushed back in and fitted an over sized washer to stop it from coming outr again

All is good. Still a little noise from the rear but from is much improved. Handling improved and smooth drive.

Now just wait and fw weeks and re-adjust and also grease the front beam.