Is there a time when a race shouldn't be flush?

[jafo9]

so on one of my trailers i've known the inner grease seal was bad. the inside of the wheel has a nice thick coating of marine grease. honestly i think it was the pressure from the bearing buddies. so i pulled the hub yesterday with the intention to pull the seal and replace it. after i cleaned the hub, i noticed that the outer race was about 1-2mm from seating flush in the hub. i'm assuming this was a mistake on assembly?

i have a small and cheap 12 ton press in my shop. my options are to press it in further or replace it. on my car, the inner sections of the hub have 2 notches to allow a brass drift to get a good bite on the race, these hubs (dixie craft) don't have a cut out so i can't really get a good bite with the drift. thus, i'm a little nervous to start whacking away. i really don't want to replace the hub since it has a zerk fitting already in place on the main body of the hub.

any advice is greatly appreciated.

 

[Silvertip]

Re: Is there a time when a race shouldn't be flush?

There has to be a notch or the back side of the bearing race must extend slightly into the hub bore or there would be no way to remove it. Clean it out and look carefully. But yes, the race must fit tight against the inner race flange. If it doesn't it would be impossible to set bearing pre-load correctly as the race would creep thus causing loose bearings (which by the way, would have taken out the seal due to wheel wobble).

 

[j_martin]

Re: Is there a time when a race shouldn't be flush?

There's enough relief in the edge of the race, and it's hard enough so that if you can get a smart tap on it with the edge of a good punch, you aren't going to hurt the bearing surface that actually contacts the rollers.

There may be debris under the bearing preventing it from seating. I'd drive it off, clean up and inspect the bore (might even be mis-machined) and put in a new bearing.

BTW, a bearing buddy will not force grease past a good seal. If it leaked, something's wrong. Could be runout from faulty bearing adjustment, but more likely either a badly grooved or, as is often the case, an undersized seal surface on the spindle. BB has a seal repair kit that consists of a stainless cup that fits the spindle and covers the old seal surface, an O ring to seal said cup to the inner race at the shaft, and an oversized very good quality seal. I use them if there's even a hint of potential seal failure.

just my 02.

 

[jafo9]

Re: Is there a time when a race shouldn't be flush?

so i took the races out. there appears to be a little lip which made it look like it wasn't seated fully. there was a little crud in the corners that i cleaned up too. my little cheapo home press has already paid for itself in the year that i've had it. i pressed in the new races and they looked almost identical to the positioning of the old ones. on my seal failure issue. i'm not sure what caused the failure. there is a zerk fitting on the hub that i may have pumped on too hard. before i had the BBs, the new grease would push out the old grease. i may have built up too much pressure that couldn't escape fast enough through the little hole on the BB. It may also have been that the preload on the thrust washer was too low and allowed some play in the hub on the spindle as there is a pretty definite groove on the spindle where the grease seal rides. when i reinstalled the new seal, i didn't push it in all the way to hopefully change where the seal rides on the spindle. i wish i had known about the seal repair kit you referred to. oh well, if this doesn't work i'll pull it apart and start over. thanks for your help.