205 Gti 1.6 Loose New Rear Hub Bearings.

[205Rallee 59]

Just had my rear beam rebuilt and put new stub axles and bearings in at the same time. Put the beam on the car and then noticed that the rear hubs were very loose i.e. a couple of mil wobble when you rock the wheels top and bottom. So took off dust cap unstaked the nut and tightened one up about half a turn, that removed virtually all the play. Tried the same on the other side and the torque wrench snapped!It did remove 50% of theplay but not all of it.

 

The bearings are brand new from Peugeot and the stub axles are new, I'm guessing the bearings weren't torqued up enough when the beam was built as it would be really hard to torque them up off the car?

 

Am I missing something (apart from a torque wrench!) or should I just keep tightening the nut till the play has gone?

 

Thanks for any help!

[welshpug 1,658]

sounds like the stub axles weren't fully home when the new bearings were fitted, I do recall there was a higher torque setting to tighten to initially before the standard one for the wheel bearings but I can;t remember where I saw it, might have been one of the old PTS build books.

[205Rallee 59]

Will give it another go with a scaffolding tube on the end of the socket, I assume I can't break anything.....

[welshpug 1,658]

err, yeah you can

 

just get the torque wrench on it.

[205Rallee 59]

Well it wasn't going to budge! About 1-2 mil wobble at the tread when I rock the wheel top and bottom. The other wheel tightened up as much on the nut and the wobble disappeared and spins lovely. Decided to get another torque wrench and another new nut, will take off the one that's on and try a new one. I read somewhere on the net what you said, torque it up to 250NM and then loosen it off and retorque up to 160NM.

 

Does look like the stubs have been pulled into the arms a wee bit as I've tightened the nuts.

 

One of those things where I decided it was better to walk away and leave it for another day before breaking the car!

 

PS Have put all new calipers and wheel cylinders on so will be bleeding them at the weekend. The car is lefthand drive so I'm wondering if I should bleed them in a different order to the one in the Haynes Big book of Lies? Or should I just bleed the longest line first, which is the right hand side rear, then lhs rear, rhs front and lastly lhs front?

[Ozymandis 97]

Sounds like yor stubs arent pulled in as you now think.

I once had a new wheel bearing POWERDRIVE it was, and this really did have loads of play.

Was a cheap nasty thing.

 

Bleeding

what layout of pipes have you got,

diagonal split with 2 front to rear pipes or the front to rear split with 1 front to rear pipe?

[Tom Fenton 1,542]

Rather than risk shattering the inner races pulling the stub axles in, it would be a better idea to get a solid lump with a hole in it and use that to tighten the nut against to pull the stub in home.

I would also double check that the nut isn't bottoming out on the threads on the stub axle instead of clamping the bearing. Shouldn't do but you never know. If thats the case you can tighten the nut till you are blue in the face and not clamp the bearing properly.