Series 3 How Does the Grease / oil stay in the Hub

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bultacobob

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Ok, so I rebuilt the front end of my late 84 series 3, I packed the 2 (same sized) hub bearings with grease and put some liquid One Shot in for good measure. Took the old tub out on a off road course 6 month later that had a wading section. A year on brakes are sounding a bit odd and I find that the inner bearing is shot on the offside. The hub had little to no grease left and just rust colour gloop. Obviously water got in you shout, but it was pretty much well sealed and surely 10 minutes wading would not have washed nearly a quarter of a tube of grease out..
So the thing is the later post 1980 hub did not allow for the bearings to run in oil as it would work past the outer bearing as there is no seal at this end. However I have found that the grease also eventually seems to just work its way out as well. The stub axel seal stops it from going onto the back brake plate and in my case the free wheeling hub and drive shaft should eventually get what ever works it way forward.
Could someone please kindly explain why there isn't a seal at both ends or how best to keep the bearing grease in the Hub. Or is this a yearly maintenance ritual to re-grease the bearings.
When rebuilding the front axel I never felt happy about the hub and stub axel set up, it just seemed like it would never really work properly from an engineering point of view.

As a side note the new bearing grease said in fairly small print good for 380 hours? I presume this was running time. I would really appreciate any feed back or enlightenment.
 
One shot is for the swivels only or you can use ep 90, axles use ep 90 also and the wheel bearings are greased ( on late series 3's ) as one shot has grafite in it it can ruin wheel bearings :)
 
Hub seal at backplate.
Seal in stub axle along drive shaft.
O ring on drive flange. Or FWH.
Done.

Use LM grease.
 
Hi, that's what I figured. I think maybe the larger "void" off the FWH allows for a greater spread, it also is another place for water to get in. I had a Land Rover manual and the guy put 1 shot into the middle space after greasing the bearings, maybe that was not such a good idea. An interesting point about the graphite, but in my experience it is one of the most slippery things on the planet, I used it on motorbike chains in the Desert as a dry lube. It took a hell of a lot of punishment on the roller bearings, so not all bad.
I used the Lucas heavy duty grease which I felt was a bit thin, Castrol LM from now on!
 
As soon as you do any deep water work it means strip down at days end, plus grease all grease nipple etc.
The seals are meant to keep stuff it, and not out due to their seal lip design.

I think it was unimogs where they lightly pressurised the axle casing to keep the water out.
 
>>one of the most slippery

But, you don't want slippery in a rolling element bearing.

You want the rollers to roll, not to slip and slide.
 
One thing to check is the axle breather, if blocked and you go into cold water with a warm axle cooling causes contraction of the air in side and if breather blocked suction will pull water past the seals. Extended breather tubes are best.
 
A quick update; I dismantled the other wheel assembly yesterday and found the bearings perfectly intact, well greased and running smoothly. These were Timkin, whist the other one that broke down was unbranded. After further forensic investigation it appears that the seized bearing produced an enormous amount of heat, this malted the seal to the stub axel and melted away the grease. So 2 lessons learned Always check and re grease after wading and don't skimp on bearings. Also a good point about the axel breather, luckily I had fitted new ones.
 
You say you "packed the bearings with grease" Not a good idea, it is industry practice to only grease to two thirds full to allow the grease to move and do it's job.
 
Hi, I pressed the bearings into the grease (Palm of hand) until it started coming out from the top and pushing any old stuff out. I thought this was the way to go. Interesting that I may have been over packing them.
thank you for your advice.
 
Once the bearing started to wear and wheel wobble a bit the grease or oil would soon leave the housing. As you suspect likely a poor quality part started the problem.
 
Defiantly a precautionary tale for anyone replacing their wheel bearings, Do NOT go cheap. The heat built up caused some small marks on the stub axel as well as melting the seal to the land, bear in mind this in the late 84 stub axel now rare as unicorn poo. Luckily the burnt rubber came off, and the Land is OK. I found Timken bearings in good order on one wheel and just assumed they had been used on the other so my bad.
 
One nice thing about the early stub axle was that the seal land was a replaceable item, good whack with a cold chisel to split then tap on a new land.
 
Yes those pre-cost cutting days were good. I suspect I may have to convert to the old ones at some point although you can fit a sleeve which looks promising.
 
tottot said:
One nice thing about the early stub axle was that the seal land was a replaceable item, good whack with a cold chisel to split then tap on a new land.
Click to expand...

When I replaced one, I found that there was no need to even split it. After a few strikes on the edge with the chisel at 45 degrees, it expanded it enough to slide off.

I used some aluminium rings, the hub nut box spanner and a steel plate over its end to knock the replacement on.
 
Something I did notice on my hub is that one of the drive plate bolt holes leads into a diagonally drilled hole to the centre of the hub.

I didn't use any sealant on that bolt when I reassembled it. I put a copper washer under the bolt head so that the bolt can be removed and extra oil squirted in from an oil can.
 
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