Adjustable rear hub seals..Whaaaaat????

[smithskids]

Rob, when I was at sea we only used to rough jobs out until we reached port. Even in a moderate sea the dial gauge used to move as the ship pitched and rolled!! All precision stuff was finished at anchor or alongside.

[RobThomas]

rearhub4.jpg (43.11 KiB) Viewed 1075 times

rearhub2.jpg (143.56 KiB) Viewed 1075 times

rearhub1.jpg (94.47 KiB) Viewed 1075 times

I tried the 'roadside' method of slipping the rear hub off of one side. The new hubs went on easily and are, hopefully, sealed forever. I had used a standard gasket (18 thou) on one of the old hubs for a week whilst waiting for the new bearings and after use it had crushed down to 10 1/2 thou, suggesting that it lost almost half of its' thickness. Using the numbers from Phil & Bob, that should suffice.

The hubs that came off (1964) had the corners below the bearings cut back (yellow) so that the radius of the bearings wouldn't interfere. The ones I put on didn't have this feature and I checked that the radius was acceptable before putting the new bearings in. The red bit shows the recess for the seal. It isn't 100% necessary to force the seal all the way back. IIRC, the seals are only about 3/4 the thickness of the recess they fit into, so you can leave a little gap behind them to let you prise them out easily whilst also running the seal on a section of axle tube that has been kept clean and oiled.

[RobThomas]

Rear wheels off today for a check-up and the whole assembly is spotless. Not a drop of oil anywhere. Paper gasket has crushed down to barely half the original thickness, suggesting that it has done the job just fine.