I tore my inner CV boot about 2 weeks ago, and it didn't even start to make any noise untill 2 days ago, and I just got time to try and swap it out (ty Nels) and my bearings are missing half of their balls from the races ... just wondering if it is common for a CV to do this? The CV was about 3-4 mons old, and the bearings were about 2 mons old.

 

Just curious if this is common or if I need to look at my set-up and change anything that is soon to kill more bearings

Doesn't sound normal, but I couldn't explain it.

I tore my inner CV boot about 2 weeks ago, and it didn't even start to make any noise untill 2 days ago, and I just got time to try and swap it out (ty Nels) and my bearings are missing half of their balls from the races ... just wondering if it is common for a CV to do this? The CV was about 3-4 mons old, and the bearings were about 2 mons old.

 

Just curious if this is common or if I need to look at my set-up and change anything that is soon to kill more bearings

 

 

 

So your talking wheel bearings here? Definitetly not normal. What do the bearing cages look like? Mangled? A pic would be good.... A bad cv can put shock loading on bearings, but that sort of failure shouldn't happen at all. What brand of bearings are they? Beware of cheap chinese ones.....

i think he is talking about the ball bearings in the cv joint. as for half of them being M.I.A., sounds really bad to me. a junkyard or replacement should do fine, if you pull a JY axle, and its boots are torn, chances are its not in good shape. try to find a decent looking axle. shouldnt cost much more than $30 (after core axle is exchanged).

 

 

~Josh~

refering to the wheel bearings on front passenger side?

 

These should last anywhere from 10-130K miles depending on conditions, tires offsets, abuse... but just a few months shouldn't destroy bearings, I'd say use only OEM parts and beware of an already trashed hub destroying the new bearings, do you know how long the previous bearings lasted?

 

might be cheeper to just use a whole junkyard hub assembly, might not last very long tho, crap shoot...

well, here's my thinking ... I had new wheel bearings put in approx. 3 mon ago, and I did have a BIT too much off-camber especially in the front pass side, due partially to the lift, and I forgot the strut hight being maxed out (MAJOR smack headage), and I fixed that and it made a HUGE differance, no more major off-camber ... I am also going to get a new alignment now that I have the lift and bigger tires than after the earlier alignment ... and see if that doesn't solve it, I am pretty certain that the hub is ok, I had my mechanic press in the new bearings today, and I will see If I can get it all back together with new seals (they got trashed too especially the outter one) new lower ball joint (it was boarder line last time, so playing this safe) one other thing I found, one of the caliper bolts had been cross-threaded! grrrr ... oh well, I just happened to have a old tap from a Helicoil kit that had that odd 12 x 1.25MM thread pitch, so I cleaned those up fine and I got a new grade 5 bolt, I will steal annother stock bolt from the JY next time I am in Msla (this thurs ) so I just now need to put it all back together ... let me know of anything else I should check b4 I risk this problem again

No wheel alignment probs would cause that kind of damage to a wheel bearing. Do you not have a pic of the bearing?

I'd say theres a good chance it was a crap bearing, and the cage somehow failed, thats the only way i can see that you'd loose/shatter balls.

 

Dont buy cheap bearings from parts stores/mechanics!!! Either go to subaru for oem ones, or preferably go to somewhere like SKF or Saeco bearings. For SKF, the bearings are 6207 if i remember correctly.

Sorry, no pics ... the old bearings are gone already But what I can tell you is when I took it appart, the actual bearing retainers (cages?) were gone and I could actually SEE between the inner and outer races of the outer bearing and it was missing half of the bearings Well, the old bearings were OEM ... and I just remembered that the first indication of a problem was a day after I toasted the CV, I noticed extra play in the same wheel, pulled over and re-torqued the axle ... it was loose :-\ ... I imagine this was because the bearings were starting to dissintigrate but not making any noise yet ... I think if I get it re-aligned after putting it all back together it will make a big differance, because before I discovered the struts being so far out of adjustment, the camber was off pretty bad on that side ever since the lift instalation in Sept.

 

Is that a safe guess?

you didn't tell us the axle nut came loose, I'd say the slopp in the hub with the loose axle nut is what trashed things, think about the rotor and wheel slamming against the axle and housing, big time no no. I torque axles to someithing like 150lbs...

Yeah, a loose hub nut may cause serious damage to the bearings. Did you have the washer on in the correct direction? Don't trust general mechanics to notice that the washer has to go on a particular way - the one time i have ever used a mechanic, they put it on the wrong way - and they were "subaru specialists".