International Lancia Forums

Hallo Zusammen,

mein linkes Vorderrad an der FULVIA Coupe hatte unglaublich viel Spiel im Lager.
Ich habe deshalb gestern meinen Achsschenkel vorne links ausgebaut um das Lager zu wechseln und bin etwas irritiert. Nach dem Ausbau habe ich ja den Achsschenkel mit noch eingepressten alten Lager und die Radnabe samt Bremsscheibe getrennt vor mir liegen. Nur das alte Lager hatte gar keinen festen Sitz auf der Radnabe und auch wenn ich das neue Radlager auf die Radnabe schiebe, rutscht es ganz leicht bis zur Hälfte des eigenes Innensitzes und hat Spiel. Das bedeutet, dass das neue Radlager m. E. nur zur Hälfte einen Pressitz auf der Nabe hätte und das kann ich mir nicht vorstellen. Leider kann ich aber auch keine Einlaufspuren auf der Nabe sehen.

Wer kann mir hier zu was sagen ?

Ist es nicht eher so, dass das Lager mit der ganzen Innenschale fest und ohne spürbares Spiel fest auf der Nabe sitzen muss ? D.h. meine Nabe ist eingelaufen in der ersten Hälfte, ich kann es nur nicht sehen.

Gruss Hans

Sorry for replying in English. I read German very well, but the matter is too complicated for my limited capability of writing it.

The cause of the problem is probably insufficient torquing of the axle nut. The original bearings are double row angular contact bearings. Check www.skf.com for an explanation.

Ideally you would want the outer race to be one piece (as is the case) and the inner race to be one piece. The later however consists of two halves for the simple reason that it would not be possible to put the balls inside the bearing if it was one piece.
To make it functionally one piece you torque the nuts with a very high torque (30 mkg or 300Nm). I now have an extremely powerfull air tool to tighten the nuts, but before I bought that I also hit the tool with a big hammer a few times after torquing it to 30mkg just to make sure that problems you have do not happen.

Note that technically inferior cars such as Volkswagen and Mercedes (don't be offended and come after me I am just trying to make a point and do so as strongly as possible for good reasons) use different types of wheel bearings which should NOT be tightened. The very high quality and very expensive double row angular contact bearings that professor Fessia (an absolute quality freak. So much quality that it drove Lancia into bankrupcy) decided should go into Flavia and consequently Fulvia do need the torquing specified in the documentation (and I alwasy add a bit). Otherwise they go KAPUT.

I have explained this often to professional car mechanics and repeated it twice. Every time I asked to confirm if they understood. They always said yes. But they did not properly torque the nuts and the bearings went kaput in a few weeks. And of course the hub wears which results in the fact that there is no longer a press fitting as you describe.

You will probably be all right if you torque the axle nut properly.

Alternatively you may consider a bearing that I offer on this site.
See www.viva-lancia.com/huib/coll/wheel-bearings.htm
It is made differently. The inner race is made out of one piece. It is therefore reasonably fool proof.

People in the bearings business tell me that most bearings fail due to improper mounting. I believe them.

I hope I made the point. If you are having it done by a Volkswagen mechanic he will confirm the will torque it properly. However he will be mentally incapable of doing it and you will have a problem again in a few weeks.

Hi Huib,

thanks a lot for your fast and detailed answer. Unfortunatly there are some unclear points for me.
FYI: the car is a full strip off restauration and i drove only some miles with it before i stripped it for body works, paint job etc. Now it´s nearly complete and this bearing is one of the last problems. I don`t know how old the bearing is.

Let me resume your hints please:
You meant, that the cause of the problem is probably insufficient torquing of the axle nut. ("axle nut" is the small nut which is fixed on the drive shaft which goes through the bearing right ?)
And that´s why the bearing got broken ( kaputt ). Then the one half of the inner race ( in my case the half faced to the engine side ) wears the hub which results that there is no longer a press fitting. That is why the new bearing ( it has two inner race halfs) slipped easy the half way on the hub.
That means it can never have a press fitting and so i need a new hub.
And have to make sure that the axle nut is torqued properly. (30 mkg or 300Nm).
Is that right ?
Last questions:
How strong must the big nut torqued, wich fixed the bearing from the engineside in he axle hub.
And where can i get an new axle hub ?

kind regards Hans Hoffmann