Thread: Converting D1 to oil hubs - of course it's not easy!

Originally Posted by Blknight.aus

Fixed it in blue for you.

LR designed them with oil filled bearings, the accountants changed it to grease as it ment a lot of things could be done cheaper

Operator maintenance. Theres a reason why theres people on this forum with the phrase "LR making mechanics out of drivers since 1949"

I just converted Lara back to proper oil fed wheel bearings on the front, including drilling and tapping the drive flanges with fill/Drain holes and plugs.

why did you do that?

Cause dads still got the series III wheel bearings that we changed out at 500K Km-ish, they were oil bath and they were good enough to keep going but we were doing the full overhaul.

It also fits into the catagory of the engineers designed the wheel bearings to be oil fed back in the day when engineering was up to a standard not down to a price and as I cant take my money with me when I go I might as well work up to a standard rather than down to a cost.

why did you drill and tap the drive flanges,

you can fill ver the diff or swivels

Originally Posted by harry

just my opinion,
been through the oil filled and non,
i think it better to leave the bearings as designed by lr, greased, and keep the oil in the diffs and one shot in the swivels

the risk of cross contamination is increased when you allow the diff oil to go through everything, not only from contamination in the diff, but from ingress of water in the bearings going into the diffs.
but the best thing also is to regrease wheel bearings and change diff oils and swivels after any dunking,

how do i know?
ask the racq tow truck driver that brought me home from beaudesert.

had been crossing salt water creeks a fewtimes and got home, changed the diff oils, not the bearings, drove the v8 a month or so later and stuffed a bearing - my fault.
it had oil filled bearings also.

I understand where you're coming from harry, but from all the pros/cons I've read, I'm still keen on oil fed hubs.

Dave - if I ever have bearings last 500,000kms, I'll be removing them, conserving them in an oil filled jam jar and putting them in the trophy section of the pool room.

To do list this morning: Order bearings, lock tabs and flange gaskets.

When changing bearings, the need to change the shells is fairly obvious, but is there any reason I need to change both inner and outer bearings? Or can I just change the inner that's stuck on the axle?

I bought a new 75 series ute back in 96(?), took it up to Corryong to have it serviced, and the first thing he did was grease nipples/caps to do the bearings with "ease".
Made total sense.

Originally Posted by 85 county

why did you drill and tap the drive flanges,

you can fill ver the diff or swivels

but you cant check the condition of the oil in the bearings.

now when we do bearing work we just spin the drain hole to 6, remove it and drain the bearing oil while something else happens, go about doing the work bolt it all back together then top it up with the fill hole at 12 and the level hole at 3/9 oclock.

get contamination in there? easy do the above process 3-4 times with a very thin oil and then refill.

Originally Posted by Blknight.aus

but you cant check the condition of the oil in the bearings.

now when we do bearing work we just spin the drain hole to 6, remove it and drain the bearing oil while something else happens, go about doing the work bolt it all back together then top it up with the fill hole at 12 and the level hole at 3/9 oclock.

get contamination in there? easy do the above process 3-4 times with a very thin oil and then refill.

ok makes sence, but by pulling all the seals, isint the oil from the diff flowing though to the wheel bearings and visa versa

yep, but it takes time to get there, if you get contamination you then have to strip everything to get the mess out.

IT also means that checking the bearings becomes a case of lift the wheel up, check the rim rock and sample the oil, if the oils clean in the bearings, clean in the swivs and clean in the diff you're good all round.

I am personally a fan of the seal thats in the axle housing between the diff housing and the swivel mount I leave that one in there and remove the rest.

The other advantage to drilling the drive flanges is you dont have to strip the axle out to get out the seal to convert to oil fed bearings.

for judo,

with fastidious maintenance roller bearings will go a lot further than 500K Km especially in low speed vehicles like series landrovers that have over engineered bearing setups for their weights. (have a look at a 1T kingswood's wheel bearings which has about the same GVM)

For comparison Shell bearings in some engines go past 500K Km