Hi Dave,
I’ve just read your post about the bearings/hubs failures on our SPF GT40 and I’m very sorry to forget to upgrade the post once I solved my problems months ago.
Well I absolutely agree what you wrote about hub quality: I bring mine to a retired Airbus chief engineer that examined the hubs and told me that for a car with 10000 miles the hubs should be new and bearings too. He told me too that the quality of hub materiel is poor and suggested me 3 things to repair:
1. Replace the hubs => too expensive solution (1500$/each)
2. Chrome plating => I asked in France for a quote it was 850$ for the 2 rear hubs.
3. Add a sleeve on the hubs => that’s the solution I took and here is why:
When my friend from Airbus talk to me about chrome plating he told me that I should get the same problems in the future due to small size of inner/outer bearings as I use the car 90% on the roads (with bumps/poor quality roads).
He told me that adding a sleeve on each hub would be a definitive solution to my problem and with that solution I could add bigger bearings (diameter/width) that could very improve their life.
First of all I’ve check on Timken’s web site to find bigger bearings. Next I went to my machine shop asking him to build sleeves to fit new bearings and machine the 2 uprights for new bearings.
So now here is what I have on my rear hubs:
- Old Inner bearings : 18690 – New Inner bearings: 18720
- Old Outer bearings: 18720 – New Outer bearings: 32010x
Here are the pictures of the sleeves installed on the hubs, the difference between 18690 and 32010 bearings and the old/new Nilos.
OlivieR