Club 80-90 Forums

Good afternoon all,

I would like your opinions if possible please.

Whilst driving to work the other day on the M27, suddenly noticed a strange squealing sound like when a piece of metal is being turned in a lathe.
Then the steering went a little wobbly and it felt like the brake was being applied. Though to myself this feels like the front wheel is going on holiday without the rest of the van, so pulled off as soon as possible as M27 is all lane running at the moment (Crap Idea). Low and behold smoke is coming out of the hub cap where the speedo cable goes, and the wheel could be moved about an inch and a half with my foot at 12 oclock. Got transported home as was so bad.

This morning pulled the front end to bits and found that the outer bearing had melted and welded itself to the stub axle, tried heating with torch to no avail, then cut through with dremel and used chisel and finally managed to get the sodding thing off but when cleaning it up looks like the axle has some blueing and some metal attached to it.

My question is can I just clean it up and put another bearing on or do I need to replace the knuckle ?

Cheers.
Glenn.

You can try to clean it with some emery paper, if it doesn’t get fairly nice on the surface you will need a replacement

Thanks David,

what do you think about the bluing could it have softened the metal in any way that could cause breakage ?
Probably being paranoid here but do they snap ?

As David said, get rid of any bits that shouldn't be there. Better to take some off locally rather than have bits sticking proud.

If the stub has blued, the hardness or softness depends on the steel analysis and whether it has been heat treated (hardened) and tempered. Blueing when tempering a hardened steel makes it tougher rather than hard, blueing a hardened steel would still leave it quite hard/tough. If the stub had suffered too much heat, it wouldn't snap, it would bend before it failed and hopefully you would get a warning before anything catostrophic happened....

not likely to snap that will be surface I expect, pop up some pictures, I have a good one if you decided to swap it out

I had exactly the same thing happen to me in Brittany a couple of years ago. Had the ‘ride of Shame’ to a local Vw dealership where they had a big laugh and relied on an overnight delivery from uk for a new bearing. I was not prepared to risk the stub axle after all that heat, so I replaced it as soon as we got home for piece of mind!

Hello all,
OK put it all back together after a long slog, filing away metal in threads and using some bearing retailer, that steering knuckle won`t survive another beating.
Had some cider now to celebrate finishing the job so can`t make much sense.
Will post results soon, how do you upload pics usually ?
Cheers.

G.