S1 Wheel bearings

[Corranga]

I'm sure I saw a site/page with nice instructions with photos making wheel bearing replacement nice and easy for a regular person like me, anyone got a link / want to tell me i'm making this up!?

Also, should I replace them as they start to rumble / in pairs / the whole car...

and where should I get 'em from?

Chris

[mac]

Best do them in pairs - it will only be weeks before the other one spits the dummy.

Not sure if you need to do them front to back until they have started to grumble.


Mac

[Shug]

http://wiki.seloc.org/a/Wheel_bearings

Is all I'm finding. The old Elise FAQ has been taken down. The bearing is a standard Timken - the part number is on that page. Any decent motor factor should be able to get you one, but insist on the timken from a quality POV. Other options are the likes of Eliseparts and elise-shop, but they work out a good bit more expensive than a motor factor usually...

Not that difficult to do if you have a press. If you don't, you'll need to take it to a garage to get it pressed out and the new one pressed in.

[philthy]

I got my wheel bearing from this guy> http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/MGF-LOTUS-ELISE-G ... 18Q2el1247

timken JRM3938A.

[robin]

If it were me, I would only replace the one that's gone. S1's that aren't heavily tracked can survive on the original bearings for a long time.

Check the hub flange shafts for taper - if they taper then replace those too or you will replace the bearing again soon enough.

http://www.eliseparts.com sell what you need, though you can also get the bearings from motor factors, the replacement hub flanges are either a Lotus item, or you can get Eliseparts' own "uprated" part which should last longer (but is no doubt more expensive).

Try to preserve the original circlips as these are of the eye-type; a lot of the pattern part bearings come with the knife-edge type of circlip which I imagine are hard to remove once fitted - never tried though!

The manual tells you how to replace them.

If your car is old enough to have the M10 bolts (17mm or 19mm spanner size IIRC) then note that the left hand wheel has a left hand thread on it. Later cars have conventional threads on both sides and a 24mm spanner size nut/bolt.

If you have the M10s, it probably makes sense to switch to the M12 bolt kit, which you can get from lotus dealers for ~50 quid IIRC.

Cheers,
Robin

[BiggestNizzy]

http://www.eliseparts.com sell what you need, though you can also get the bearings from motor factors, the replacement hub flanges are either a Lotus item, or you can get Eliseparts' own "uprated" part which should last longer (but is no doubt more expensive).

Or a rover dealer they are off a metro

[Corranga]

I got my wheel bearing from this guy> http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/MGF-LOTUS-ELISE-G ... 18Q2el1247

timken JRM3938A.

Are his definitely timken bearings? I asked him if there was any writing on the bearing and he replied "The writing on the bearing is Power Drive"

Chris

[philthy]

the one I got was timken, wouldnt buy it if it wasnt.

[BiggestNizzy]

Before anyone fit's one to there car is their any chance of measuring the I/D, O/D and width.

There is bound to be a better bearing out there!

[robin]

The better bearings are fitted to the S2's ...

I'm not convinced that the bearing itself is the issue - wear on both the hub flange shaft and the upright itself is more the issue with mechanical wear. The bearings suffer from brake heat as much as anything - this causes the grease to boil and then the bearing fails. Not a lot you can do about that except vent the brakes and allow them to cool more frequently.

Cheers,
Robin

[campbell]

My S1 bearings failed at very different times, so whilst I don't contradict the spanner experts often, I have to go against Mac's view and say you are OK just to sort the one that went (sorry Mac!)

As for the hub flange, I got one of these for my most recent bearing swap as we suspected tapering (mild clonking), from Eliseparts but you need to tell them you want one for a regular S1 Elise as their standard hub flanges come with longer studs as standard to fit Exige / 340R. Sadly, their tailoring for Elise S1 meant they actually just trim the studs back by a few mils - but one of the threads was chewed so Robin spent a lorra lorra time re-fettling the thread with a file etc

I fed this back to Geary and he assures me they'll not ship any like that again, so go for it but check the part carefully when it arrives.

Campbell

[robin]

Well remembered Campbell - yes if choosing to go with new hubs check that the wheel nuts will fit onto the flange BEFORE you assemble the whole thing - preferably before you even disassemble the old one.

I made a mistake about bolt sizes - early cars have M12 (not M10 as I said), later cars have M16 clamp bolts - the torque for the M12 type is 77Nm while the torque for the M16 type is 210Nm (that's quite a lot, BTW!).

Keep the new bearing and new hub in the freezer. By the time you've pressed the new bearing into the upright, it will have warmed up, so it will be easier to press the hub into the bearing. If you fancy it you can also heat the upright to make removal of the old bearing and refit of the new bearing easier (and thus less wear on the upright itself).

To disassemble:

Undo and remove the clamp bolt - it's easier to do this with the hub still on the car, but you will still need to lock off the rear of the clamp bolt. Depending on what tools you have available you can even do this with the wheel on the car (remove the centre cap). Remember M12 front bolts are LEFT HAND THREAD on the kerb side. Note the arrangement of the clamp bolt and washers - I tend to keep the washers on the bolt in the order they come off the car so it's obvious how it fits together again later.

Remove the caliper - loosen and unwind both bolts most of the way before finally removing either of them. Clean these bolts with a wire brush or similar.

Remove the brake disk (no fasteners on the S1, but it will probably need persuasion if rusted on).

Remove the hub from the car - top and bottom balljoint plinths unbolt from the hub using 6mm or 8mm hex drive (cannot remember which) at the top and 17mm spanner size bolts at the bottom:
* Use a small screwdriver or similar to remove any rust from the cap of the cap head bolts at the top - this will allow the hex drive tool to fit into the hole better and less likely to round off (you are screwed if you round it off, so don't undo until you are confident that the tool fits really well).
* Loosen all 6 fasteners before removing any of them.
* When undoing the bolts at the bottom, don't be tempted to remove them from plinth unless they just fall out - some are a real pain to get back in.
* When removing the top bolts note the orientation of the camber shims (they have a hole one end, a slot the other end). Also inspect the top bolts for any signs of strain - they may well be bent! If they are, replace with the correct grade of bolt (I think they should be 8.8 = mild steel) - don't replace with high tensile unless you understand why I'm saying that, in which case, feel free to do what you like!
* You should clean the plinths and corresponding surfaces on the upright with a wire brush (they'll be lots of yellow powdery stuff on them).

Press the hub out of the bearing and upright - this might take a part of the bearing with it if the bearing is really worn - in this case use a puller to pull that off the shaft (or an angle grinder to split the bearing inner but be careful not to mark the shaft itself).

Remove both circlips that hold the bearing in the upright. I would now use some WD40 to clean out as much of the rust and crap that's in the path of the bearing and then use plenty of oil (3-in-one or just some spare engine oil) to help ease the path of the bearing on the way out. Press out the bearing - you need to use a dolly that will pick up the whole bearing and make sure you've got somewhere for the bearing to come out - if you haven't used a press before, take your time and make sure that you're applying force to the right thing and everything is square - you must support the upright around the exit directly on the metal and not via the splash shield (which will just bend and crush).

Clean out the upright, remove any rust and debris from the circlip grooves.

Fit one of the circlips.

Now you should heat the upright in an oven to 90C for 20 minutes according to the manual. If you have access to an oven, fair enough, if not you can either try and gently heat with a blow torch or just settle for using a frozen bearing instead.

Press the new bearing in to reach the fitted circlip (it just wants to be touching it, not pressing so hard that it bends the circlip).

Fit the second circlip.

Now support the inner race of the bearing on the inboard side and press the hub in from the outboard end. Take your time - if you don't support the inner race, you'll push that out the inboard side as you press the hub in from the outboard side. The shaft doesn't actually protrude from the inboard side, so you can support the whole bearing with a sold round dolly.

Refit the clamp bolt (remember, the nut goes on the outboard end). If you can torque it up on the bench using a vice to hold it, fine, but for the M16 I suspect you'll struggle and so I would just tighten it as best you can now and torque once fitted to the car.

Refit the upright to the car using Duralac between the plinth and upright mating surfaces (Duralac is a yellow gunk that prevents/limits electrolytic corrosion between joints made from different metals - as in this case, the upright is alloy and the plinths are steel). Clean all the bolts before refitting and use threadlock on each bolt. The top and bottom plinth bolts all have a tightening torque of 45Nm - don't overdo it, you'll strip the threads.

If you haven't already torqued the clamp bolt, now's a good time to do it.

Clean the hub and disk mating surfaces as well as you can - the cleaner it is, the less chance of getting vibration/rumbling.

Refit the disk (I use a smear of copperslip on the hub to ease removal next time).

Refit the caliper (clean the mating surfaces, but as they're all alloy you don't need the duralac). Clean the caliper bolts, and use threadlock on them before refitting. Should be tightened to 45Nm.

Cheers,
Robin

[campbell]

Phew, I may have remembered about the hub stud but not the full procedure - bravo! It all seemed so much more straightforward when me you and McApe did it! But then you guys have done a few now, eh

[mac]

My S1 bearings failed at very different times, so whilst I don't contradict the spanner experts often, I have to go against Mac's view and say you are OK just to sort the one that went (sorry Mac!)


Campbell

Just passing on what I was told from a higher authority. I didn't listen when I was told and turned up three weeks later to do the other one. Nothing was said but the "I told you so" grin was on the face
Mac

[campbell]

Just passing on what I was told from a higher authority. I didn't listen when I was told and turned up three weeks later to do the other one. Nothing was said but the "I told you so" grin was on the face
Mac

I guess it's Se7en-specific...he never told me that when we did my first Elise bearing