ribs

I've had this problem with the 951 for a month or so...it happened right after I ran an autocross in the beginning of may. I figured a wheel bearing was going out as whenever I made a left turn, a loud squeeling sound eminated from the front left wheel...it was really loud at low speeds, and an ear pearcing whistle at higher speeds. I left for 3 weeks going cross country, got back, and the problem was still there. I ordered wheel bearings from paragon right before I left, but they mistakingly shipped them to my old address which is about 100 miles away, so I haven't had the chance to pick them up yet.

There was an autocross today, and thursday I was frustrated with not having the bearings so I repacked the side that was making the noise, and got grease all over the back of the rotor in the process...the noise went away for about 5 minutes of driving, but came back whenever I turned left. Even more frustrated, friday I bought an inner and outer bearing/race set and grease cap from my FLAPS with the intent of installing it when I got up to the town the autocross was being held in (I went up last night).

Being my first time doing a wheel bearing, I printed out the directions from clarks-garage.com and followed them to a T (besides the brass punch part...I used a 10" 3/8" socket extension to punch out the old races, and it seemed to work fine). I froze the races and heated the hub in the oven (everyone at my friend's house we were staying at was cracking jokes about cooking a porsche and suggested I add paprika and chili powder), but upon "dropping the new races in with little or no effort", the second the inner race hit the 250 degree hub, I could see it expand at an incredible rate and it only got part way in, and could not be tapped into place.

I figured I would move on and revisit this problem later. When I attempted to put the outer race in, I was pleasently suprised by a grossly incorrect bearing and race (it was about 1/2" too big). Extremely frustrated, I decided I would take it to the local speed shop first thing in the morning to get it fixed professionally.

They had the proper sized bearing for the outer, and it took the guy all of 5 minutes to tap out my partially inserted inner race, hot tank everything, tap in the new and proper races, pack the bearings, and send me on my way. They charged me $10 in labor and $5.62 for the bearing and race.

Excited that I might make it to tech on time, I learned from my friend who was driving me around during this whole ordeal that the tech was an hour earlier than the last autocross at the same place, so there was no way I could get it back together, register, and tech in 15 minutes.

Pissed off, I went to the autocross with my friend, who agreed to let me drive his hyundai accent in a different heat than he was running. When he ran in the 3rd heat (I was registered in the 4th heat), on his second run, his 30,000 mile hyundai started smoking like cheech and chong after he lifted throttle coming down the long strait of the course. He decided not to run any more, and didn't want me to run his car either. I guess his greddy oil catch can didn't help much...it was probably because he overfilled his oil by almost a quart, and having no baffle in his oil pan allowed the oil to get up on the bores past the pistons, making plumes of smoke.

After paying $30 to run an autoX that I ended up not running, we returned to where my car was, I reinstalled the hub/rotor/caliper/wheel, and I went for a test run.

Now the same damn squeeling noise was there the whole time, not just when turning left (although it was slightly more pronouced when going left). Very pissed off, I returned and jacked the car back up to investigate.

Here is where I=teh stupid. Upon inspection, I reinstalled the air deflectors behind the rotors (brake cooling things that attach to the strut) a little closer to the rotor when I changed my springs (there is a little bit of lateral adjustment with these things), and when I ran the autocross in may, it must have introduced just enough play into the bearings that the deflector would scrape the rotor when going left, but float fractions of a mm above it otherwise. When the new bearings/races were put in, they were probably put in tighter than the previous races and moved the whole hub assembly inward a couple 1000th's of an inch, making the scraping constant.

I quickly pulled the air deflector off, bent the corner that is near the rotor inward 1/4 of an inch, reinstalled it, and had absolutely no noise. The reason there was no noise for a couple of minutes after repacking the bearings sloppily a couple of days prior was that the grease on the back of the rotor was quieting the uglyness, but burned away after a couple of brake stabs. I could have run the autocross if only I had known this a day or two ago. Oh well...at least I have 1 new wheel bearing set installed (I'll have to do the other set when I pick up the box from my old house).

What can we all learn from my mistakes? See the big picture...don't focus on one thing, and consider all the possibilities before shooting your self in the foot. I suppose that is good life advice too.

Mongo

Ribs it could be worse, the car couldn't be running at all.....look at the bright side at the fact its driving. You're as picky as me when it comes to the mechanics though and thats a good thing. I hope everything works out man.

Andy

ribs

I feared that my car might have been stuck 170 miles away from home (where the autocross was) with a broken ankle last night. I was very relieved that it drove home with no drama, but overall I am a little bummed out that I wasn't able to drive in the autocross, hyundai or porsche.

I suppose it is the natural order of things that when one has as good of a week as I have had up until last night, something has to come into balance and take my mood from lifted to mediocre.

Chris_924s

Trust me. we're all a little dense every now and then, everyone who is passionate is.

FWIW:
Einstein had 6 identical brown suits and didnt know his own phone number.

Luckily its resolved.

Peckster

Keep that grease off your rotors.