Rear Wheel Bearing track life?

[R13]

I just installed new rear wheel bearings late 2011/early 2012 and one of them has "already" failed after probably half a dozen track weekends. It's the left rear (which would make sense give that most of the tracks I frequent are significantly right-handed). I am just looking for more data points to see how abnormal it is to go through a bearing that quickly.

Any experience there?

 

[docjohn]

I have had numerous rear wheel bearing changes, driver side more than passenger.Just comes with the territory

 

[R13]

Ok, so maybe not so odd, and possibly worth keeping an extra on-hand (although not an at-track swap sans press).

I'd run a handfull of events in the past 3-4 years, but I've A) gotten faster and B) probably run double the number of events in the past year that I had previously.

 

[Hrant]

Shad at DrivingAmbition has a special grease/kit for this especially if you will be tracking. Give him a call.

 

[A.S. Motorsport]

Just wanted to say that, special high heat grease helps.
Might be a idea to replace your drive shaft boots and add the high heat grease as well.

 

[R13]

Funny you mention that. I had Barney rebuild the axles with the DA heavy-duty bearings/races/grease while he had the car apart for head gaskets.

I wasn't aware of any way to actually grease the sealed wheel bearing assembly though.

this is what's gone bad (such that I can wiggle the stub axle around in the bearing even without the wheel for leverage)

 

[nsxnut]

Shad at DrivingAmbition has a special grease/kit for this especially if you will be tracking. Give him a call.

Shad has the MOJO for the axles. The wheel bearings are sealed.

After ~120 track days I finally had to replace one of my rear wheel bearings. I did both sides for good measure. I used the OEM parts. No issues since.

If you are replacing them frequently I suspect there is another issue but Not sure what would cause that.

Later,
Don

 

[Coz]

Are you running spacers ?

 

[R13]

Nope, just a typical 17/18 wheel setup and agressive street tires (formerly Dunlop Z1, currently Nitto NT05). Rear wheels are 18x10 +35 and I've run between a 255 and 275 tire on them.

 

[nsxtasy]

I am just looking for more data points to see how abnormal it is to go through a bearing that quickly.

Number of actual NSX track miles: 13,188
Number of rear wheel bearings replaced: zero

 

[RYU]

dumb question. what are the symptoms you guys are noticing?

vibration? noise?

 

[R13]

In my case: vibration first, then noise, then being able to wiggle the rear wheel with the car in the air.

I had a ever-so-slight shimmy in the steering wheel that started during/after my last track event. It would get into a rhythm around 65-70mph, but was almost imperceptible below ~50mph.

I thought it was tire balance, so I had a shop re-balance the fronts, then had them balanced again on a different machine in case that shops machine was off. I got to thinking I'd bent a wheel or gotten some tires that were out of round.

This whole time of course I'm looking only at the front "axle" because I couldn't feel it anywhere but the steering wheel....

I went to swap my spare wheels/tires on the car to go for a drive to see if I could narrow it down and as I went to remove the left rear, I noticed it was wiggling around in my hand when I was loosening the lugs. More investigation led to the bearing discovery. Please note, I'd just run an autocross and part of the standard tech is to shake each corner to check for bad bearings/ball joints. With the weight of the car on it, you just couldn't tell.

 

[Coz]

Interesting for sure.
I have 3 years on track with this current NSX, 12 weekend events a year and never a bearing failure.
Hmmmm.....

 

[R13]

Needless to say I'll be double-checking my re-assembly this time. I know for-sure everything was torqued to spec (even borrowed a BATW to do the axle nuts). So other than just a lemon of a bearing, I'm not sure I can think of much that would have exacerbated the wear.

 

[R13]

Houston, I have a problem. My recently-replacemed bearing is lunched after just one track weekend and one autocross and it did nor cure the steering shimmy I was experiencing.

I'll be checking that corner of the car now for something else amiss that might be the cause of both issues.

Ideas where I should start with that?

 

[nsxtasy]

First, it's not clear from the above whether you completed your test of swapping one set of wheels/tires for another, to see if that eliminated the steering shimmy. (It sounds like you got sidetracked when you found the bearing problem.) That's the first thing I would do.

As for other possibilities, the ball joints are a common failure. And they come as part of the whole knuckle, so don't be surprised that it's an expensive fix.

The last time I had the ball joints replaced (which was the second time overall on my NSX), they also replaced some of the tie rod parts, where there was some wear/play.

P.S. I wouldn't expect a rear wheel bearing to cure a shimmy in the steering, which is in the front.

 

[R13]

Eh, it's a pretty rigid chassis, so something wobbling on one end could definitely translate to the other.

It's just WAY too coincidental that it's eating wheel bearings AND has a steering shimmy and this has all happened in approximately the same time frame.

Just to toss it in there, the tie-rod bits are new on both sides in the rear. An alignment shop popped one of the balls out of it's socket and replaced on their own dime after a fight, I replaced the other as a precaution and so they'd match going forward.

I did get side-tracked with the wheel/tire test. Aborted the first time because I found the bad bearing (no point while that's going on) and then I had a couple of events right after.

The first thing I will be doing once I change the bearing (again) will be putting the OEM rims on and going for a drive. However, while I've got it apart I'm definitely giving the rear corner more of a once-over before I just throw more $120 bearings at it. I plan to temporarily remove the strut while the axle is also loose so I can do a better job of checking the ball joints and bushings for slop.

 

[illwillem]

Im interested in what you end up finding as the cause. Maybe check the rear hat bushing on the coil-over too since they are buried up under the engine cowl plastic its easy to overlook, i donno if that would cause them to wear as quickly as your describing though.

When you say that a shop replace a ball joint what do you mean? The ball joints themselves cannot be replace by mere mortals since they are bonded to the forged aluminum pieces, To do it correctly they need to be machined out and fitted with a larger size chamfered cone and pressed/bonded in. Honda/Acura themselves say you're SOL and tell you to replace whatever part altogether. I did a lot of research on this subject before i bit the bullet and got mine replaced by Steve Ghent up in Northern CA (recommended guy to do the work). Not to say the shop you had the tiff with didn't do that, but I would think it VERY unlikely. There is a couple NSX's being parted out here and there Maybe get a hold of a used OEM piece with OEM ball joint, they could be had for a couple hundred bucks to test out.

 

[R13]

Im interested in what you end up finding as the cause. Maybe check the rear hat bushing on the coil-over too since they are buried up under the engine cowl plastic its easy to overlook, i donno if that would cause them to wear as quickly as your describing though.

When you say that a shop replace a ball joint what do you mean? The ball joints themselves cannot be replace by mere mortals since they are bonded to the forged aluminum pieces, To do it correctly they need to be machined out and fitted with a larger size chamfered cone and pressed/bonded in. Honda/Acura themselves say you're SOL and tell you to replace whatever part altogether. I did a lot of research on this subject before i bit the bullet and got mine replaced by Steve Ghent up in Northern CA (recommended guy to do the work). Not to say the shop you had the tiff with didn't do that, but I would think it VERY unlikely. There is a couple NSX's being parted out here and there Maybe get a hold of a used OEM piece with OEM ball joint, they could be had for a couple hundred bucks to test out.

I'm talking about the smaller ball joint on the outboard end of the rear toe link. The mechanic didn't brace it with a wrench when trying to turn the somewhat-stubborn adjuster and it popped out. They replaced the entire outer end and the adjuster screw as opposed to just fixing the joints. I have not had the upper/lower major ball joints done.

That said, I thought I had seen a thread somewhere on here where those (the big ones on the control arms) were being replaced without buying new control arms.....hopefully I won't have to go find that one.

Once I have a chance to get stuck in I'll report my findings. I'm running KWs and have re-used the OEM top-hats, so there shouldn't be any movement there.

 

[docjohn]

I don't think a misaligned susp is going to fizzle a bearing that quick....heat will do it....very puzzling unless they did not replace it and lied or it was already used

 

[R13]

I don't think a misaligned susp is going to fizzle a bearing that quick....heat will do it....very puzzling unless they did not replace it and lied or it was already used

Just so nothing gets discombobulated here.

Wheel bearing: I ordered and recieved the new bearing assemblies myself and only outsourced having it pressed onto the hub by a shop I pretty well trust to do things right 95% of the time. I removed/reinstalled it on the car myself.

Toe link ball joint / crap shop incident: Ancient history and completely unrelated because that happened well before anything went wrong, I was just making the point that they are new.

 

[docjohn]

thanks for clarifying.....I'm at a loss..:redface:

 

[illwillem]

Do you still have the heat shields on the rear? I was also thinking a dragging caliper or dragging e-brake line will cause excess heat. It wouldn't take much dragging to build up and maintain a lot of heat, and wear the bearing. It'd be hard to diagnose just spinning the wheel in neutral and listening for dragging l since theres all sorts of other transmission noises at the back end. How is the rotor surface compared to the others, bluing rotor and glazing pads? Maybe fully bleeding cleaning and fully compressing pots could at least eliminate that. I had a very very minimally dragging caliper on my motorcycle that caused havoc, i checked and rechecked, over looked it twice- ended up getting some heat sensitive rotor paint and finding out that it was double the heat on that rotor than the other side due to a dragging pad.

 

[RYU]

Do you still have the heat shields on the rear? I was also thinking a dragging caliper or dragging e-brake will cause excess heat. How is the rotor surface compared to the others, bluing rotor and glazing pads will be a clue? Maybe fully bleeding cleaning and fully compressing pots could help?

I've been debating leaving the dust shields in the rear. I had to take them off for the e-brake assembly but one time I tore a CV boot. There was grease EVERYWHERE and i'd be concerned about the grease getting onto the rotor. I should try to find a way to put the dust shield back on...

 

[illwillem]

I removed my shields and I cut them into just little squares i put thermal reflective tape on them and just have them covering balljoints on the knuckle, ive read postulation that taking them out all together exposes ball joints to a lot of heat and will cause them to wear faster. They are not cheap to replace. As far a grease on the rotors, id be more concerned of it were the front, since 80+ percent of the braking is done up there, still though it would be a good thing, probably just comes down to checking axle boots more frequently when you have no shields