wheel bearings or ball joints loose? would I notice?

flyaway · Post by **flyaway** » Mon Oct 29, 2012 6:33 pm

So, I finally ended up paying for an oil change because I had no time-no oil-no oil filter-was 1000km overdue. Was expensive. The lovely people at Napa rotated my tires, though, and checked the van, and found that by lower ball joints "have excessive play".
I drove 1000km the day after, and have not noticed anything unusual. Whould I notice anything? Anyway, today I went by another car mechanic and asked about ball joint replacement. They were so nice to have a look at the car for free, and he said, that the ball joints aren't excessively loose, but that I should "fix" my wheel bearings. By now (after veggie oil installation) I know a lot about the motor, but nothing about the car itself. What does this mean? Would I notice it if they are too loose (the wheel bearings)? Is this something one adjusts regularly? Can I trust this random mechanic (is it something that looks the same in all cars) that it's actually loose? He seemed nice, but still. Any ideas? He'll call me with a quote tomorrow. He feels that changing the ball joints at the same time seems like a waste of money, since they aren't too bad. Sigh, should I try to find a third person to look at?

Thanks a lot for any suggestions.

Firesong · Post by **Firesong** » Mon Oct 29, 2012 9:33 pm

Adjusting your wheel bearings isn't too hard. Hope he isn't charging you much.
If I remember from Jason's instruction. Take off the auto hub, there's a washer / nut that comes off and you give that a turn till the correct tightness. You can grease stuff up while you are in there like your locking hubs and some grease for the outer bearing.

flyaway · Post by **flyaway** » Tue Oct 30, 2012 12:01 pm

So this is nothing that warrants 5hrs of labour? He was making it sound like it was complicated and time consuming.

Firesong · Post by **Firesong** » Tue Oct 30, 2012 4:40 pm

Is he changing the wheel bearings or tightening them up? All of them or?

rezdiver · Post by **rezdiver** » Tue Oct 30, 2012 9:52 pm

You can tell the bearing has some play or is loose by jacking up and feeling for excess play. if excessively loose then you may get vibrations or rumbling during certain speeds and side loads when turning.

bearing could be fine and grease is just dried up, or when they did it last they may not have torqued the nut enough or packed too much grease in the bearing race and did not reset the nut after initial torque.

I had a loose bearing in the front, took me about an hour to remove, inspect, clean, repack with grease, and reassemble. I have experience but it was my first time on a delica and I did not have a manual.
It would have taken me another half an hour if i had to remove the bearing seats to completely replace with new bearings.

The difference is most mechanics go by book time and not the actual time it takes to do the job. 5 hours is way too much for one wheel but probably an average quote for 2 or more wheels. (assuming he is cleaning and repacking with grease or replacing bearings). if he is just tightening the nut, the quote is rediculous.

you got 2 different diagnosis and opinions from 2 different mechanics, maybe get a third opinion since you are not comfortable.

flyaway · Post by **flyaway** » Sun Nov 18, 2012 10:53 am

Thanks Rezdiver for the details.

I talked with the mechanic again and will now have him just have a look at all the bearings/tighten what's necessary and grease up whatever he can find to grease down there. I haven't done a very good job at keeping up with nipples and other things that need to be greased, in the last 2 years, been focused too much on the motor/veggie conversion. So it may not be too bad to have somebody looking at the underside and making sure things are ok. I may even ask to look at some of my veggie/coolant hoses that I have a hard time from stopping leaking. He thinks it should take max 1.5hrs to do that. And if he thinks that something is actually wrong he can tell me that. I hope that with all that interaction (and me bringing our work car for tire change to him) he will be decent enough to be real honest and not inflate problems. Of course I'd rather already have "a mechanic I can trust" like CVI or people on the island than somebody i need to nearly supervise, but then it's like with doctors: often one needs to be very informed oneself to help the guy make good decisions... And driving to Calgary from Banff to see somebody a bit better versed with Delicas seems excessive at this point, when nothing's really wrong just maybe some prevent. maint. needed.

Thanks everybody for replying. Still way too far from knowing enough about cars to really be able to handle that beast by myself!!!

Cheers!

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