Darien

Tony mentioned that it's an easy task, I couldn't find any previous threads. My left front seems like a little play is there, so I'd like to check and tighten both sides.

dr bob

Make sure the bearings are packed correctly before you start the tensioning process. With newly packed bearings, you need to press the extra grease out of the faces of teh rollers first, so a preliminary thightening of the nut to, say, 25 ft/lbs would be used. Then back off the nut. Tighten the nut again until you can just move the washer behind the nut, using a small screwdriver. If you have enough clearance there to move the washer, you have enough to allow the grease to flow around the rollers in the bearing cages.

There are more than a few cars that list a torque spec for final adjustment of the nut, with 12-15 INCH/lbs a good starting point if you have a small torque wrench. Verify hat you can just barely move that washer. In my experience, using the wiggle-the-edge-of-the-wheel adjustment gauge is a dangerous waste of time.

I think the WSM probably has a few notes on this adjustment procedure, BTW.

jon928se

It is easy ! maybe not

Remove wheel (jack car up first and use axle stand)
Remove hub cap thingy - use a 12" long about 1" square piece of hardwood inclined as far as you toward the centreline of the car hit the end with a mallet with the other end on the groove in the hub cap. Sniggle hub cap off with large vise grips end on. Try vise grips first the hub cap may be loose
Undo clamp bolt using ?? 7 or 8mm allen key.
Tighten aluminium adjusting "Nut" (Its not a hex shape and it has the clamp bolt in it) as tight as you can using the method below.
I use a pair of water pump pliers ( I think they're called adjustable pliers in the US) end on so that they are aligned with the "axle" and I am twisting the pliers like a screwdriver. Unless you are a Gold medal strong man you can't get it too tight this way. Check that it is not too tight by putting a flat blade screwdriver between the hub and the thrust washer under the nut, you should be able to twist (not lever) like you were screwing in a woodscrew and just move the thrustwasher sideways. If it won't move try the screwdriver 180degrees opposite.

Spin the brake disc a few times and check it goes around smoothly - it won't spin freely but it should be smooth.

tighten the clamp bolt - I forget the torque but you can look it up in the manuals. If you don't have a set of manuals speak to Jim Morehouse. refit the hub cap, put the wheel back on and lower the car off the jack - don't forget to torque the wheel nuts when the car is on the ground.

Garth S

Basically the same as above - but I loosen the allan bolt in the adjuster nut, leaving the key/wrench inserted. The slot on the hub becomes the next 'wrench', as it levers against the allan key: Grasp the wheel studs and tighten the hub clockwise to seat the bearing cups & cones - then, back the allan key off ~ the width of the slot in the hub - and check the thrust washer for the required play ..... tighten when satisfied ...

This is a 30 second job .... if you ignore the 15 minutes fighting off the grease caps

AO

For the grease cap, I use a 1 7/8" (IIRC) muffler U-clamp. This gives you something to grab hold of / pry against. Everything else is as described above.

928drvr86.5

I read a tip on removing the grease caps once that suggested using a claw hammer. With the claw of the hammer resting in the groove of the cap tap the head of the hammer with another hammer while working your way around. It does not take much of a blow, you don't want to dent the hell out of the cap. I tried this method, it works great.

AO

I tried this method and couldn't get it to work for me - the claw would just slip off the groove. The muffler clamp prevents this.

WallyP

A friend who was a life-long bearing engineer told me how the bearings were adjusted on the assembly lines...

Spin the wheel while firmly tightening the nut.
Stop spinning, and loosen the nut.
Tighten the nut as firmly as you can using ONLY your fingers - no tools!

The goal on a wheel bearing is to get as close to zero preload AND zero end-play as you can. The above method does that very well and very easily.

As a matter of useless curiosity - the tapered roller bearing on a differential pinion shaft look identical to front wheel bearings. But - if you don't put somewhere around 80 lb/ft on the adjusting nut for them, they fail very quickly. If you put a fraction of that on the adjusting nut of a wheel bearing, it will fail quickly. The difference - a very few degrees of taper on the rollers.

Darien

That's what I needed

Jim bailey - 928 International

Also worth mentioning front wheels bearings should NOT need to be adjusted very often if they get loose quickly odds are something is wrong !

Tony

Ill add.
Dont place fingers in cooling ducts of rotor when turning. If you do, besure to remove them before turning the rotor as the caliper comes around
Got 5 stiches in the tip of my finger for that one!

concor

Just did my two front wheels. They both had up/down play and it's a no-no for the dutch annual checkup. I actually had this in my 944 I previously owned and let a garage replace the whole inner work of the wheel because I did not know you could just tighten them. Was 200 euro. So, I'm pretty happy this time it was free! Was a bit hard for me to understand how to do it though. How to remove the dust caps, how to make sure you turn it not too tight, and how to find out how to loosen the clamp nut. I didn't notice the slot to put the allan wrench through

So, me happy! I can get through the annual checkup and I think the steering reacts a bit quicker now as well! Oh, and my my bearings aren't degrading too fast, oh, and last but not least, it's a bit safer I suppose

Love the forum, love the search function!

JHowell37

If the one side is adjusted properly, don't f#ck with it. You'll do more harm then good.

Mrmerlin

if you cant get the 12/6 play out of the bearing by adjusting where the washer moves with a push of the screw blade tip then you could have a worn seating area for the inner bearing race, removal of the hub is necessary to verify this, I have seen many spindles with worn race seats.
The only thing to do is make sure the bearing is adjusted per spec, taking the play out by over tightening will lead to race failure

James Bailey

Correct get one too tight and the bearings fail and the inner race can spin on the spindle quickly destroying it , happens on car/ boat trailers all the time since you can not HEAR the bearings being chewed up like you do in a car.