440 front wheel bearing - help

[bowkerie]

For the last month or so the noise coming from the off-side front wheel has steadily got worse
Fairly sure its the the wheel bearing.
Noise is worse when turning at slow-ish speeds and some times when I accelerate away from a stop.
Anyone any ideas what else it could be???
If it is the wheel bearing how big a job is it??
Whats the likely cost of taking it in to the garage to be done???
The car has its MOT at the end of the month so should I hang on till then?? Is it safe???

Be really grateful for your help

Cheers

Chris

[scottishvolvo]

I would guess at a CV joint, why dont you put the car in for the MOT now. You can put it in a month early and have the certificate dated accordingly, it means if it passes you can have up to 13 months MOT on your car. Worse case if it is the CV is it could break up and you will lose drive. Never had a bearing fail on me so don't know what would happen if it failed completely.

[jlgrosvenor]

In getting carried away and wanting to do a proper job for the NEXT 100,000 miles following on from my post about brakes here, I have now removed the stubshaft carrier axle (? I will check the name of this, but it is the bit the brake calipers, ball joint, suspension strut are attached to). This contains the wheel bearing, so I now have two choices.

(i) take the complete carrier axle to a garage and get them to change the bearing
(ii) have a bash at this myself.


As it is £30 from PartsForVolvos.com I suspect it will be more from any garage. From the pictures on their website, it looks like it should be a fairly simple job. "just" as case of removing circlips, pushing the old bearing out and replacing the circlips with new ones. What could go wrong

[Daniel M]

That sounds exactly the same as the noise my first 440 was making when the wheel bearing went. If it's gotten progressively worse, jack the car up and kneel by the wheel the noise is coming from-grab the wheel square on and pull it towards you (back & forth) to see if there is any 'play'.

There may not be alot, but if the noise is as bad as you say, i'd expect to see at least some. I can't tell you how to change it though, i was very young at the time (17 i think!!!) so i sent it to the garage.

But i would put my money on the wheel bearing...

[Mark480]

The bearing is tighter than you could believe. I would take the hub assembly with the old bearing in to a garage to press out the old one and press the new one in. It is possible to do it yourself with a big hammer and other things you might find lying around but it's much more practical to get a garage to do it. It should only take them ten minutes whereas it might take you the best part of a day.

[jlgrosvenor]

Judging by how difficult it is to get the wishbone bushes out by ones self, I would have to agree - take it to a garage to do unless you happen to have a powerful hydralic press at you disposal (like a pillar drill, but just a press). After taking my wishbone to work today to try to get the bushes out, it would appear we have one there, so I have used this very easily for the bushes (under 1 minute per bush, if you include the time lining it up on the press rather than just the pressing), and I hope it will be a similar story for the bearings.

[jlgrosvenor]

I have changed a wheel bearing on my Volvo 440. The car has done over 100k and the bearing was starting to get slightly rough. I had little problems removing all the appropriate bits and removed the bearing with relatively little fuss.

On this car the bearing is a solid outer casing/race (not tapered) and two half-inner casings/races. There are two tracks of bearing balls, each track in contact with only one of the inner races. Before fitment to the car, each inner race CAN be prised outwards slightly (a few mm) with a large screwdriver pressed in to the circumferential join between the two inner halves. Not that you would necessarily need to do this mind! I am just pointing out that the inners are not fixed and are relatively free move axially outwards(*) on their particular/relative side. There is a picture of the bearing in one of my posts above.

In following the Paines Manual, I used a perfectly fitting drift (67.75mm with a bearing outer diameter of 68mm) to push the bearing into the stub axel carrier. The stub axel carrier is the spidery lump that holds the outer of the bearing, and attaches to the ball joint, suspension arm and track rod end.

I then turned the stub axel carrier over, and rested the bearing on the drift again (supporting both the inner and outer races). I then proceeded to drift the hub in to the inner race of the bearing.

Upon reassembly of the wishbone, stub axel carrier etc. and once the wheel was on I found (much to my joy and amusement) that there is a couple of mm lateral play. I am assuming this is much like the play you would get in a worn bearing, and is evident by a slight clunking as you move the wheel from side to side. I would also add that after removal of the wheel, the bearing rotation still feels silky smooth.


Can anyone help me with this (if you have managed to read this mega post without dropping off )? I can only think of two scenarios (which I was sad enough to think of whilst in a semi-dream this morning waking up:

1) I have somehow shagged the bearing
2) The Paines manual says to support the inner race when drifting the hub back in to the bearing. As I didn’t have anything the right size to hand, I used the same drift that I used to push the bearing in to the stub axel carrier. This is perfectly flat, and therefore would support both the inner AND outer races – unless the inner race is slightly narrower than the outer race. If this is the case, the two inner halves of the bearing may not have been nipped together fully. This would allow a little of the outward axial movement I mentioned earlier (*).

Your help and comments are much appreciated.