Porsche Enthusiasts Club Forum

Afternoon all

This may be something or nothing. I have what is either road noise from the tyres or something that sounds like a wheel bearing on the way out. Rear wheel bearings done in last 2/3 years and fronts new a year ago one side and recently the other side. I have jacked the car up and there is no play in any wheel bearings. I'm pretty sure it is not the wheel bearings making the noise.

So, I have fairly fresh Toyo T-1R's. About 1/2k on them. Any experience of these being a but noisy? It does tend to fluctuate a little based on differing road surfaces. The noise remains the same whether on or off throttle, or when clutch dipped and coasting.

I recently replaced an inner CV joint, near side, had been toasted by the exhaust heat. Other inner CV is of same age, 7 years/45k miles. Could it be causing noise? There is zero play in any of the 4 CV's.

The noise is not from the gearbox or torque tube, or at least I don't think so as stays same with dipped clutch. Noise seems worst between 30-60mph. Tends to disappear further up the speed scale.

Did notice flicking the steering left sometimes made it slightly worse and flicking right slightly less, but this is inconsistent.

Could it be output bearings on gearbox, they must rotate with wheel speed regardless of throttle? Have noticed with rear jacked up when you rotate wheel one way then the other there is a little bit of slack before gearbox engages, but thought this was normal enough, or is it? Confused.

Of course turning the radio up makes it go away.....................

Help

Stuart

Ok hold the bus on this one. Suspect near side front wheel bearing. Was a bit of play so tightened up and no difference. So this was replaced about 2 months ago by local friendly garage, grease not looking that new, phoned garage and he may well have replaced the near side instead! Makes sense cos the noise never went away and me assuming that bearing was new has embarked on a wild goose chase, well hopefully. Said garage man going to do the near side bearing foc over the weekend. Fingers crossed. Definitely very pronounced turning left, almost away turning right. Does this correlate with goosed near side front bearing?

Ta

Stuart

Turning right puts the load on the inner race on the NS, outer race OS

And the other way round turning left

Cheers. So changed the bearing and realised that whilst changing he has changed the correct one after all. Carried on replacing in case it was a duff bearing. Test drive showed no reduction in noise, so car up in air again and although zero play the front driver side seems to be a bit noisy when spinning. So Monday night going to change driver side front bearing. This bearing is only 14 months old but may well be the culprit. Hopefully this is the issue as I don't fancy playing with the rears again!!

Stuart

I had exactly the same problem years ago - changed both rears without fixing it & it turned out to be a front wheel bearing (even though the vibrations were coming through the shell & not the wheel)

packing the bearings has to be done right or they don't last long,

from about 7:17 in this video

https://youtu.be/2L5FtX0QhK4?t=7m15s

and you also need to place about 60gms between the two bearings as well its in the workshop manual

Thanks guys. Inner bearing off side was toast. Outer bearing was in perfect nick. I suppose I now have 2 brand new front bearings and didn't need to revisit the rears!!

I wonder if the bearing wasn't packed well or if it was just a poor bearing. Seemed plenty grease in it anyway. Inner bearing showed heavy scoring between the rollers, like the rollers had sunk a fraction allowing race to bearing cage contact.

What is the service life of a tapered bearing? Appreciate many variables but I have done both sides twice in last 6 years and that problem one done today probably only lasted 6 months before acting up. Took me another 6 months to find it as did not expect it to be gubbed as it was very recently done.

Anyway, all good again and not too heavily out of pocket!

Stuart

just changed my fronts, they were the originals, 150k 24 years!

bit of scoring on the outer ns, lot of wear on the inner OS

but all in all not too bad.

being adjusted incorrectly has a huge impact on bearing life.

What he said. Alot of people will try to overtighten them due to MOT testers not familiar with such bearings.

The ones on the RST died for a similar reason! On my dad's XR3is he never had a bearing go on the rear with a taper design.

It doesn't help when you get differing ways of adjusting them according to what you read! The Porsche method on 944s has served me well though!

As another note wheel bearings feel fine with a wheel on most of the time. When you get the disc off the hub however that is when you can see just how rough they are by turning the hub itself. On a 944 of course that is only possible on the rear. I have had this happen to me twice where I initially dismissed a wheel bearing being gone with the wheel still on the affected hub.

Haynes for an MGB:
-Measure the gap with a feeler gauge or preferably a dial gauge. Put a new split pin in.

Haynes for the Escort MkIII/VI
-Fronts ; Hand Tighten the nut for the fronts and then put the car on the ground. Tighten to 200-225Nm with a new nut every time
-Rears ; Tighten initially to 25Nm so as to seat the bearing, while spinning the wheel around at the same time. Loosen the nut and then hand tighten until the nut bottoms out and fit a new split pin.

Porsche:
-Tighten the bearing enough so that the washer behind the nut can just about be moved with a screwdriver. Alot of YouTube videos look to go alot tighter than this with their 944s!