[240] SKF Rear axle bearings not so sturdy under side loads?

NotSoFresh said:

You were also cracking axle flanges as well, correct?
Something is not right with the rear end housing. At minimum I would swap volvo rear ends entirely to eliminate this from the equation.

Since an 8.8 swap is relatively cheap/easy if you can weld and parts are way easier to find because mustang, I would go this route sooner than later. A junkyard exploder 8.8, an extra short side axle, a welder and a weekend is all you need.

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Nothing train wrecks trouble shooting faster than 1) bad parts assumed good.....

Nothing.

NotSoFresh said:

You were also cracking axle flanges as well, correct?
Something is not right with the rear end housing. At minimum I would swap volvo rear ends entirely to eliminate this from the equation.

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I think you're thinking of the SloVo guys that were breaking axles.

Jordan

towerymt said:

How did the driver become aware of the problem on track?

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Assuming you're asking me - we had a driver come in complaining of terrible rear-end noises the first time this happened. The skinny ring on the SKF was worn down to almost nothing.

Second time was proactive; we pulled the rears to see what shape the bearings (fresh prior to the race) were in.

NotSoFresh said:

Since an 8.8 swap is relatively cheap/easy if you can weld and parts are way easier to find because mustang, I would go this route sooner than later. A junkyard exploder 8.8, an extra short side axle, a welder and a weekend is all you need.

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I realise that folks aren't necessarily following all our adventures, but an Explorer 8.8 swap is a non-starter due to the lack of hub-side 48t ABS tone rings. It's possible that some of the later Mustang rears might? work, but I haven't been able to find a reliable source of information regarding ABS ring tooth count.

Given the amount of work in our ABS setup at this point, and given that this shouldn't be happening in the first place, I'm not inclined to throw a bunch more variables into the equation.

I *was* interested to find this table:

https://dutchmanaxles.com/wheel-bearing-identifier

The Volvo rear outer bearing is 1.562 / 2.875, which appears to be a pretty common Mopar sizing, and the "Green" bearing the Mopar guys rave about (the ST400) looks a whole lot like the Green RW-902-V but with a circlip instead of the second O-ring.

So there are probably options in this space if someone that knows Mopar axle bearings well can be found.

I have to agree with the above statement about bad parts. I've gotten wheel bearings from SKF that had the wrong races for the application. They were 240 front wheel bearings with outer races in the package for a different vehicle with a larger diameter hole in the hub. On closer inspection the part numbers were off by one on the outer race. Lucky we had good condtion used race around.

I would cetrainly be willing to sell the bearing I have. But I don't know if I have a pair for you. Hopefully you can find this same bearing. The only other part you'd need would be the same size washers.

No driver complains, not the best environment for comparison(La Carrera Panamericana, horrible roads!). found it at the end of the day as just a bit too much play,so just tightened them a bit.next day at service they were loose again and starting to turn color.replaced shortly thereafter.

I am prepping the work area I will be doing the reprep for my rally car in and I am interested to see what happened to mine.

At the final service about two weeks ago at the Oregon Trail Rally my service guy found a bunch of play [about what you would expect from a shot bearing] in the rear wheels at our final service. We couldnt really do anything about it. I did not notice any extra noise really so I ran the last two stages backed off a little bit.

I've never had a single rear wheel bearing issue on countless 240's I have owned, even the lemons car they feel totally fine after like 3k race miles.

pat244ti said:

I am prepping the work area I will be doing the reprep for my rally car in and I am interested to see what happened to mine.

At the final service about two weeks ago at the Oregon Trail Rally my service guy found a bunch of play [about what you would expect from a shot bearing] in the rear wheels at our final service. We couldnt really do anything about it. I did not notice any extra noise really so I ran the last two stages backed off a little bit.

I've never had a single rear wheel bearing issue on countless 240's I have owned, even the lemons car they feel totally fine after like 3k race miles.

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interested to hear what you find!

Just a quick update. We pulled the axles this weekend to inspect the 'Timken' non-tapered roller bearings: no silver pixie grease, no apparent damage or wear.

So best guess, some metallurgy issues with current? some batch of? SKF rear axle bearings.

Sorry to bump this but you can run a tapered original bearing or a double roller like the Timken RW131R?



This diagram shows what looks like a roller bearing and not a tapered bearing.

CAPT_BLOTTO said:

Sorry to bump this but you can run a tapered original bearing or a double roller like the Timken RW131R?

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The tapered original bearing is the SKF part that led to this thread. The RW131R is pictured in a post above; they seemed to work OK.

This weekend we ran with a fresh rear stick using some NOS "green" bearings (as discussed earlier in this thread). Packing them was ... interesting, as they are sealed on both sides once pressed onto the axle. Not clear how to repack them, so they may be consumables.

They ran well for the weekend, with one issue; the locking ring is considerably deeper than the OE lock ring. So much so that under cornering loads it interferes with the inside of the axle tube.

The noise it makes when it does that is *awful*. Saturday night we pulled the stubs to investigate, and cleaned up the worst of it. Eventually the parts self-clearanced and the situation improved, but I would recommend using the OE locking rings or turning down the inner portion of the supplied lock ring if going this route...

DrZiplok said:

They ran well for the weekend, with one issue; the locking ring is considerably deeper than the OE lock ring. So much so that under cornering loads it interferes with the inside of the axle tube.

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That kind of seems like a red flag to me. Why are the side loads so high? It could be the same thing that was killing the stock bearings. Are you sure you aren't rubbing under articulation? That will kill the bearings really quickly. If it's from pure grip, then BRAVO... but I would just verify all the basics.

blkaplan said:

That kind of seems like a red flag to me. Why are the side loads so high? It could be the same thing that was killing the stock bearings. Are you sure you aren't rubbing under articulation? That will kill the bearings really quickly. If it's from pure grip, then BRAVO... but I would just verify all the basics.

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The lock ring issue is, I think, just that the rings that came with these ("green") bearings are substantially wider (I didn't check their OD, they might also be fatter) and they intrude into an uncontrolled space. It didn't take much side load (just weaving at warmup pace was enough) to get them into contact with the inside of the tube on one side.

We're not rubbing - it was definitely something we checked. Right now I don't have a better answer than that we must have gotten a couple of naff SKF bearings. I have a fresh set on the shelf, we'll probably try them again when these ones age out.

refresh my memory, what diff do you have? Is there a chance that has excessive play and is allowing all the angularity of the axles?

DrZiplok said:

The lock ring issue is, I think, just that the rings that came with these ("green") bearings are substantially wider (I didn't check their OD, they might also be fatter) and they intrude into an uncontrolled space. It didn't take much side load (just weaving at warmup pace was enough) to get them into contact with the inside of the tube on one side.

We're not rubbing - it was definitely something we checked. Right now I don't have a better answer than that we must have gotten a couple of naff SKF bearings. I have a fresh set on the shelf, we'll probably try them again when these ones age out.

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blkaplan said:

refresh my memory, what diff do you have? Is there a chance that has excessive play and is allowing all the angularity of the axles?

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This is a freshly-built stick with a Gripper in it. Diff bearing slop wouldn't allow this much angularity / give.

I think there has to be some give in the bearing that allows the axle to bend a little, but I'm still fairly convinced the major culprit is just the lock ring intruding. I have a couple other items ahead of this on the todo list, but if I remember I'll add pictures to this thread when I take it apart to clean it up.