Thread: Swivel Hub Preload and shims

Originally Posted by toc_bat

thanks for the informative replies, when i 'changed' the swivel pin fluid i realised they were almost dry, maybe 50ml in each, and after filling up one of them has a minor leak so the next thing is to try to seal the leaks, and hence i suspect maybe the bearings will need attention or replacement, are both the top and bottom the 606666 bearings?

bye and thanks again

The swivel seal (the large one) will leak if there is any play in the bearings, so this may be the problem.

John

well i did it this afternoon, stripped one of the swivels, the one with the more prominent leak. Interestingly the leakier one had very slight freeplay in the system when I rocked the wheel. The other one doesnt even drip on the ground more of a weep and it has considerable freeplay.

This is what I found,

The tapered rollers are perfect, no pitting or brinnelling or noticeable wear or roughness. The ball had a bit of a gouge taken out of it, possibly in some accident or maybe the steering lock was not set up right, there were also coils of steel at the bottom, looked very much like bits of helicoil insert.

Also there was no gasket between the seal and the seal retaining plate. In my manual and various online fiches there should be a gasket. But i note of all the kits for sale on ebay, none has this gasket despite having all the other gaskets and seals.

The seal was very hard, and is not an interefernece fit in the housing, in fact there is quite a gap between the housing and the seal, either it has shrunk or a gasket should have been fitted.

I suspect that the rocking I felt when i tested the wheel came from loose wheel bearings and not the swivel bearings. I just went and tried the other wheel when it rocks it is moving independently of the swivel.

bye for now

PS Bearing Industries in Yennora have a listing for a kit for both swivels, all the bearings, oil seals (6 oil seals all up i think) and gaskets for $180.

by the way the bearings in mine are Timken 11590, which is a standard size, Bearing Industries have NSK ones for $16.50. Much cheaper than any land rover place I think. In fact these bearing suppliers have consistently been the cheapest and most knowledgeable in the last 15-20 years that I have been mucking around with bikes and cars, very often when another bearing shop has told me that the bearing or seal I have doesn't exist, they will often have it on their shelf or know who to order it from. PS SKF make the same bearing, in fact they all use the same number, 11590.

Ok, as I started this thread, I'm now circling back with an update.

The root cause of the issue was rubber panhard bushes that were shot, despite being 3 months old. I suspect that when I fitted them, I had the vehicle jacked up and when the bolts were tightened, they loaded the bush in the wrong place leading tube to delaminate from the bush when the vehicle lowered to the correct height. This delamination led to play in the bushes.

Interestingly, the vehicle did not exhibit any death wobble when towing my 900Kg camper trailer. When the trailer was removed, the death wobble was encountered on potholes at speeds over 60kmh. The loaded trailer was doing something to the physics of the vehicle.

I replaced the panhards with superpro bushes (previous good experience with them and much easier to change in/out when the time comes again.

I bought the parts to rebuild the swivel housings and it took about 3 hours to do the side with the least preload. The bearings were not brinelled so I am yet to do the second side. The vehicle drives great.

After eliminating the issues and roadtesting, I finally replaced the steering damper with a Terrafirma RTC type.