For those who have actually put real mileage on your cars...

[TurboFource]

I know from my days of rebuilding high speed industrial manufacturing equipment that simply dropping a roller bearing could damage it……I would imagine an impact from a pothole could do the same…a roller in a tapered bearing has a much larger contact area than the ball in a roller bearing and should handle impacts much better.

[TurboFource]

Any progress getting this fixed on your car BDA?

[BDA]

Sorry, I've been quiet on this lately. Here's an update (please excuse me if I repeat anything):

I was finally able to take both hubs off but it was not easy or pleasant. I tried A LOT of heat with a good impact wrench and a good puller I borrowed from a parts store. That did not get much movement. It wasn't till I started beating the back of the hub with a hammer and walking it off the stub axle that I was finally able to get the hubs off. I find it offensive to take apart a apart of a car with a hammer but there was no other way. I almost lunched the borrowed puller which was a good one with hardened parts (even after greasing the threads with moly grease!)! Thankfully the inner side of the hubs don't show!

I could easily wobble the stub axle in the upright of the driver's side (the bad side) and assumed it was a problem with the outer bearing. Unfortunately, I didn't look closely at the inner bearing. When started taking it apart, a few hits with a dead blow hammer got about 1/3 of the stub axle out. The rest was not coming. I tried using the puller to push it out but it just got cocked on the inner bearing somehow so I gave it to a nearby shop to complete the disassembly for me. When I got it back, the inner bearing was really lunched by my efforts (and maybe the shop's too) so I have a limited amount of useful evidence there. I gave the shop the passenger side radius arm and upright to disassemble after my troubles with the driver's side! When I got the driver's side pieces back from the shop, I measured the ID of the inner race of the outer bearing and it was NOT smaller than the bearing seat on the stub axle as I expected! I wonder if the bearing was seated on the "pad" on the stub axle. I'll do some measurements but I don't know what I could possibly find since I'm using standard uprights, stub axles, and Richard's bearing spacers. Maybe there was something wrong with the inner bearing. It's pretty messed up but maybe there will be a number I can read and make sure that I at least installed the proper bearings.

There is some history that makes my issue a little unique. I have a TCS but as I remember Richard traded my TCS radius arm and uprights for TC parts because at the time he hadn't developed his twin l ink and rear disc kits for the TCS. I don't remember who installed whose bearings. I THINK I installed my bearings but the TC inner bearing is different from the TCS inner bearing so that may not be right. I know the stub axles are the one from my TCS.

I'm going to do some more measurements when I have things further apart as well as check for which bearings I had been using. I'll report on that when I know more.

I promised to call Richard and ask him about the life of bearings and any suggestions he might have and I actually did but I only got voice mail. I'll try again.

I've been discussing this offline with EuropaTC and he corrected himself about his experience saying that when he replaced the bearings every two years (less than 20,000 miles), he had to deal with a lot of snow and salt , etc. which took a toll on his car. He suspects that the bearing life is a lot better than he worried about. I'm coming to that conclusion too but I'm withholding my final assessment till after I learn more about my inner bearing.

When I started this, I decided that I would replace all the rear wheel bearings at once. I have a road trip to the LOG in West Virginia later this year and didn't want to be stuck on the side of the highway. I think if I have to deal with this again, I'll only do the side that is having trouble. It has been way too much trouble and way too painful to take these hubs off to do it when it's not necessary yet.

[TurboFource]

That sounds like no fun!

When I pulled mine I put tension on the puller, heated the hub, then wack the end of the bolt on the puller with a hammer to “shock” it and the hub would move slightly, repeat a couple of times and then you could just continue to tighten the puller bolt until the hub came off.

By hitting the bolt on the puller you are hitting in line with the axle and the hub comes off straight
with no side loads…..does that make sense?

[BDA]

Yes, that make sense. That sounds like a good technique that might have helped me.

In contrast, my technique was to use map-gas, which burns hotter than propane, heating up the hub from behind while turning it. After a few turns, hit the puller with the impact wrench. I have a small compressor (I lost my bigger one when my wife wanted to "remodel" the garage. ) so the wrench would run for a minute or two and then the compressor needed to catch up. While the compressor was catching up, I heated the hub again till the compressor caught up. Rinse and Repeat. I probably went through a dozen cycles of that. That hub was really hot when I finally got it off so heat wasn't the problem. If I have to do it again, I'll either give it to someone else to do or try your technique.

[SwiftDB4]

Is the hub carrier on the bad side worn in the area of the inner bearing (loose fit) ?

[jbcollier]

Turbo Fource's method is good but remember to keep the nut on.  Otherwise the threaded end will swell and peen over with the blows.

BDA, do them both at the same time.   Otherwise you fix one and then, very few miles later, the other fails.

The best puller for the job is a "top-hat" shaped puller like this:

https://rimmerbros.com/Item--i-RX1542

As a matter of fact, this puller will work on Europas.  Much less flex that with the arm-type pullers.  I have actually seen TR6 rear hubs that bent when trying to remove them with an arm-type puller.

[BDA]

It gets curiouser and curiouser. I just took the (superfluous) grease seal off the back of the inside of the upright and the bearing fell out! The bore for the bearing appeared to be in good shape - there was no obvious beat up places and from my simple dial caliper, it appeared to be pretty round. It looks like there could have been some bearing seating compound uses as there is some crusty stuff at the bottom of the bearing bore. The bearing seemed ok. When turning it, it is a little tighter than the outer bearing but there are no rough spots on either bearing. It would not simply go back into the bore and thus would likely require that the upright be heated with hot water to insert the bearings as the manual instructs. There is no obvious distress in the bore for the grease seal so I think it came out during the efforts to get the stub axle out. The IDs of both bearings are the same (~ 1.180) and the bearing surfaces on the stub axle are about the same. So I think the answer to your question is no, there doesn't appear to be a loose fit but I'm measuring everything with dial calipers so my measurements could be off a thou or two.

There are no markings on the inner bearing. I haven't gotten the outer bearing out of the upright yet but so far, I don't see any identifying marks. 

[BDA]

JB, thanks for the tips and the puller.

[GavinT]

[...]  The housing depths could be machined to account for the difference but I don’t want to do that.

Yes, but I was more thinking that the ears of the trailing arm kinda stop the outer bearing from moving axially and now there'll be a .049" protrusion.

[GavinT]

Has anyone tried a double row inner ball bearing ? 3006 2RS is 55 x 30 x 19 mm. I bought a pair, but never machined the axle shoulder for the extra width. Being that it's a double row bearing and 19mm wide vs 13mm on the standard bearing it should be appreciably stronger.

David A said he used a dual-row inner bearing but he can't remember the bearing ID – presumably it's a 3006 2RS. (link below)
I'll wait for the resident engineers to comment on whether "angular contact" makes a difference in this application.

Perhaps of more interest is David A's take on his replacement rear stub axles.
He uses a custom made splined & threaded shaft with off the shelf U-joint yokes and wheel hubs.

All custom machining is expensive which is often reflected by the set-up costs associated with limited runs but it seems possible that an axle alone would be somewhat cheaper than making a whole axle which includes the U-joint yoke from billet stock.

https://www.prevanders.net/europa/rearaxle.html

[BDA]

David claims that no machining was necessary. I have looked at two bearing suppliers and didn't find any double row bearings that would fit. Admittedly, the search functions for the places I was looking (Grainger and Motion Industries) is pretty poor. Searching for "double row ball bearings" gives you what must be every bearing they sell.

If anybody finds one that will fit, please post it.

[jbcollier]

No machining necessary is a bit of a misnomer as it was a completely custom set up.  Any double row bearing is going to be thicker and will require the spacer to be machined thinner to compensate.

[TurboFource]

Just search for “62mm x 30mm double row bearing”….several show up

[jbcollier]

The double row bearing is the inner bearing, nut the outer.  So: 30x55x?.