Oil Fed Rear Wheel Bearing Drama

[Max Headroom 2.3m]

About 12 months ago I converted front and rear wheel bearings on a Defender 90 TD5 to oil fed instead of greased for all the usual reasons. I fitted new stub axles, new wheel bearings with double nuts & fold over tab washers as well as new double lip hub oil seals RTC3511 (Corteco). The front, I kept as three compartment but made the rear contiguous i.e. one compartment by removing the axle shaft seals. Also fitted new discs & pads all round. Everything was running smoothly until I saw this at the rear right wheel…….aarrrrgh!!
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I checked for wheel bearing clearance and although there was no perceptible movement when rocked up and down, there was a slight “clicking” sound. I presume that this sound was due to bearing adjustment being too loose but if it is, it is only just too loose given that no movement could be detected. As there is no grease to muffle sounds, it does seem plausible.
Before I throw more new parts at it, does anyone have any experience with this. Would the slightest of bearing movement be enough to cause oil to weep past the new double lip oil seal running on a new stub axle surface? I assume the new brake pads are toast. Any advice is appreciated.

[W&KO]

It could be that your hub seal is not [emoji817] square??

I had a similar issue and even though I fitted a new stub I fitted another new stub with new hub seal.

Is the reason for you changing to oil lubed wheel is because you have fitted maxi drive type axles and drive flanges??

If not, I’d stick with grease lubed

[Max Headroom 2.3m]

Is the reason for you changing to oil lubed wheel is because you have fitted maxi drive type axles and drive flanges??
It is for the front. The rears was to keep in theme, that and I liked the idea of not having to grease the bearings. Perhaps that needs some more thought...
As for the squareness of the seal, I used a drive flange with a steel plate spacer to recess in the hub.
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I seem to remember that it is supposed to be recessed 4mm although I can't find that spec in the WSM right now which says to use special tool LRT-54-003. Can anyone confirm 4mm recess?

[W&KO]

It is for the front. The rears was to keep in theme, that and I liked the idea of not having to grease the bearings. Perhaps that needs some more thought...
As for the squareness of the seal, I used a drive flange with a steel plate spacer to recess in the hub.
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I seem to remember that it is supposed to be recessed 4mm although I can't find that spec in the WSM right now which says to use special tool LRT-54-003. Can anyone confirm 4mm recess?

Was referring to the rears as when upgrading axles the instructions generally say to convert to oil.

I never had issues running grease before upgrading axles. 200k and the bearings were fine.

From memory it’s about 4mm, I assume the seal surface on the stub is in good nick?

[Max Headroom 2.3m]

I assume the seal surface on the stub is in good nick?

Haven't pulled it apart yet but stub axles were new when I converted it about 7000km ago.

[DazzaTD5]

I suspect the issue is nothing more than a seal not fitted that great or it was nicked while the hub was fitted to the stub axle.

try this when fitting seals:
smear a small amount of PTFE paste around the outside of the seal before fitting it to the housing. (white thread sealer that plumbers (sometimes) use)
smear some silicone grease onto the seal face (of the stub axle) this will ensure the inner part of the seal doesnt get damaged when fitting.


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other...
I have never subscribed to oil filled hubs and always grease pack the bearings and add some to the hubs.
I would never run the bearings in just oil even if you are running oil in the hubs, it simply is not enough.

Same with removing the inner housing seal so the diff oil lubes the axles/drive flanges, grease works far better.

[JDNSW]

As for grease vs oil, in my view, there is no advantage with grease in wheel bearings except that it tends not to leak.

Remember that Landrovers used oil lubricated bearings from 1948 to about 1995? and did not gain a reputation for wheel bearing failure. (Except for the grease lubricated semifloating rear axles on most Series 1)

At 700,000km on my County, I have had exactly one wheel bearing failure (a year ago), which I attribute to water/mud ingress while deeply bogged. It has been oil lubricated from new, of course.

The problem with grease compared to oil is that the rollers push the grease off the bearing surface, and it stays off until the bearing gets hot enough to melt the grease.

I always grease pack the bearings to ensure initial lubrication until oil feeds through from the diff/swivel. Early Landrovers - up to Series 2 from memory - provided a plug in the drive flange to allow an initial fill with oil rather than needing the grease packing. This was discontinued, apparently to simplify production, and the instructions changed from oil filling to grease packing in the workshop manual.

[Xtreme]

Another advantage with oil lubed wheel bearings is that if the oil seal fails (which is rare in my decades of experience) you immediately have an indication of the failure by the oil spraying around.
Whereas if/when the seal fails with grease lubed wheel bearings, there is almost no immediate indication of the failure. So you continue driving, often for thousands of k's, oblivious of the water/mud that has entered your hub and is now chewing away at your bearings and the seal surface on your stub axle, resulting in a far more expensive repair.

In over 50 years of owing and driving Land Rovers I have never needed to replace wheel bearings, except on a number of friends Landys that were grease lubed!

[Max Headroom 2.3m]

.......Whereas if/when the seal fails with grease lubed wheel bearings, there is almost no immediate indication of the failure. So you continue driving, often for thousands of k's, oblivious of the water/mud that has entered your hub and is now chewing away at your bearings and the seal surface on your stub axle, resulting in a far more expensive repair....
This is my son's Defender which he bought at around 195,000Km. It needed a bit of work and we spent the next 4 years working on it off and on. We had the vehicle inspected prior to purchase which flagged some of the major issues that we were expecting to fix. We weren't expecting to have to replace the front CVs and drive flanges (rusted and fretted out - no lubrication) and right front & rear wheel bearings which felt a bit gritty but no clearance...yet. This was the right rear stub axle which had corrosion on the bearing races as did the front bearings. The grease looked quite manky.
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I am not sure if oil lubricated hubs and bearings are all that much of an improvement but as you have said, at least there is some indication of a leak path. I have discovered one of the shortfalls and that is when they leak it stuffs up your brake pads...[bigsad]

[86mud]

Are you running bigger tyres ie over a 285/75R16 on an 8" rim with more than a 25mm offset? This can add stress to the bearing and require tightening of the wheel bearing nut/s slightly above the factory torque settings otherwise you can get some bearing play at stock torque settings.

[Max Headroom 2.3m]

Are you running bigger tyres ie over a 285/75R16 on an 8" rim with more than a 25mm offset? This can add stress to the bearing and require tightening of the wheel bearing nut/s slightly above the factory torque settings otherwise you can get some bearing play at stock torque settings.

It is my son's Defender 90 and he is running 255/85 R16 (same diameter as 285/75 R16) muddies on standard 7" Boost alloys that are ET +33 offset at the moment. He has bought new rims waiting to be fitted that are 8" R16 with an ET -15 so they will sit 48mm further outboard on each side (I tried talking him out of it!!)

When we converted to oil lubed bearings, we also converted to the double hub nuts with no spacer between the bearings as per earlier Defender models. When we set it up, we torqued the inner nut to 50Nm, rotated several times to settle then backed off 90 deg and then tightened to 10Nm. Fitted the lock washer and torqued the locknut to50Nm.

I have little experience setting up wheel bearings so what would you suggest as slightly above factory torque? 12Nm for the second tightening of the inner nut? I have a 5-25Nm torque wrench but it is a 1/4"drive which will have to be adapted up to the 1/2" drive hole of the 52mm hub nut socket.

[jboot51]

Have you checked the diff breather is not blocked ?

[Max Headroom 2.3m]

Have you checked the diff breather is not blocked ?

Good call. It was checked when we set it up about 12 months ago. I wouldn't expect it to get blocked given that it hasn't seen much off road in that time but it is still a possibility. And yes it is the first item on the hit list when we get stuck in to it this weekend.

We do have insects here that like to crawl into little tube holes. A recent example was a 30hp outboard cooling water tell-tail that had to be unblocked...native bee was fished out. A few weeks later, it was blocked again..same story.