Wheel Bearing Adjustment...

Over the last 2 weeks the main focus of me and my peers has been air brakes and air brake systems. To start of we were all asked to perform 10 wheel bearing adjustments and post about them and what we have learned.

This is a picture of the primary nut or inner nut being put on after wheel bearings and seals have been replaced.

After the inner nut has been tightened by hand the first step is to tighten it down to between 200 and 300 ft. lbs.

After the inner nut has been torqued down to spec (preloading the bearing), the inner nut will need to be backed off  one full turn and then torqued back down at 50 ft. lbs.

After the inner nut has been re tightened the spindle washer can be put on. You may need to re adjust the inner nut too line up the dowel pin.

Now the inner nut can be put on.

Once you have the outer nut has been hand tightened, it will need to be torqued down to between 300 and 400 ft. lbs.

The next step will be to test the free play in the wheel bearing adjustment. This will be done with a dial indicator.

The free play in the wheel bearing should be between .0005 in. and .005 in. the closer to 0 the better. 

I found wheel bearing adjustments to be very easy not too time consuming, it seemed I spent more time on getting the tire off and back on. I think what I will take away from this assignment for this part of the program is how important it is to preload bearings when called for, and how important free play is.