1965 Noise from rear wheel - help please !

[Mark P.]

Can someone please watch this video to tell me if they agree with my conculsion that the rear drivers side wheel bearing has failed.

http://www.youtube.com/user/mpellowski?feature=mhum#p/a/u/0/MrVo5IN2J-8

I was at an NCRS Chapter meet last week and after about 40 miles of driving around 70 mph I heard a grinding noise coming from the rear drivers side of the car.

I had the car loaded on a flatbed tow truck and got it home.

The noise seems to be coming from the rotor hub. It is not coming from the half shafts I believe and the halfshafts have no play in them at all.

I have heard these are real strong bearings and rarely fail. I doubt they have ever been replaced or even greased. A mechanic at the meet drove the car and thought if it was a wheel bearing the noise would change if the car was driven in a low speed slalom pattern. It did not change as we shifted from left to right.

My plan is to get rebuilt trailing arms with rotors from Barird's and replace both. Should I also hand the half shafts rebuilt and replace all the suspension rubber ?

Once replaced, is there a good way to grease them regularly ?

Anything else I should change while I am in there ?

[Domenic T.]

Re: 1965 Noise from rear wheel - help please !

Mark,
There is also a set of brake shoes in there that can have a broken spring.

Try it while someone pulls the E-brake and see if the sound changes.

I found the spring broken in my 67 while doing the frame up resto.

DOM

[Edward J.]

Re: 1965 Noise from rear wheel - help please !

Can someone please watch this video to tell me if they agree with my conculsion that the rear drivers side wheel bearing has failed.

http://www.youtube.com/user/mpellowski?feature=mhum#p/a/u/0/MrVo5IN2J-8

I was at an NCRS Chapter meet last week and after about 40 miles of driving around 70 mph I heard a grinding noise coming from the rear drivers side of the car.

I had the car loaded on a flatbed tow truck and got it home.

The noise seems to be coming from the rotor hub. It is not coming from the half shafts I believe and the halfshafts have no play in them at all.

I have heard these are real strong bearings and rarely fail. I doubt they have ever been replaced or even greased. A mechanic at the meet drove the car and thought if it was a wheel bearing the noise would change if the car was driven in a low speed slalom pattern. It did not change as we shifted from left to right.

My plan is to get rebuilt trailing arms with rotors from Barird's and replace both. Should I also hand the half shafts rebuilt and replace all the suspension rubber ?

Once replaced, is there a good way to grease them regularly ?

Anything else I should change while I am in there ?

Mark, just turning the rear wheel like that in your video, It is hard to say,The rear wheel needs to be spun faster, which is hard to on a C2. generally a Wheel brg. that is gone make a growling noise and is speed sensative,Its noiser the faster you go. Sometimes the bearing noise pitch will change when turning left or right with the load on or off the wheel. and with the wheel on the car sometimes there is end play in the wheel when you grab the wheel a 12and 6 and see if there is movement.

If you end up doing he trailing arms as you say it would be easier to do the half shaft joints and maybe replacing the strut rod bushings and leaf spring cushions.and maybe even re-do the leaf spring liners and re-paint the spring,

[Don H.]

Re: 1965 Noise from rear wheel - help please !

Mark,
your experience is eerily like one I recently went through, only I really did eat up my drivers side rear wheel bearings. When they finally gave out, as I was also driving home from chapter meet, I starting smoking from my bearing assembly as if I was on fire, but wasn't (yet). I also flat-bedded home. I had previously removed my calipers and replaced both parking brake assemblies with new SS assemblies, and I think that is all that is wrong with your car. especially if you by chance inadvertently drove with your park brake applied, you likely snapped one of the small fragile springs holding the shoes, and now you have one or both shoes buggered up in that rotor hub. Your rotors do not have the original rivets holding them to the spindle (anymore) so they have been previously removed, so you can easily pull the left one after disconnecting and pulling off the caliper. I bet if you do you will find your problem. I think you can also grease your bearings at that time, though I do not know how it is done. I doubt that you need new trailing arms, though you can go that route if you want to make a bigger project.
Hope this helps

ps- I do have to have both my Trailing Arms replaced and built up. Duntov Motors in TX is doing the job. They do outstanding work, and their prices are exceedingly fair. Edward, Alan and especially Steven are responsive and very much focused on customer satisfaction. I highly recommend them.

[Mark P.]

Re: 1965 Noise from rear wheel - help please !

I am hoping it is just the emergency brake components. I'll pull the rotor tomorrow and check it out. Thanks everyone for the advice.

[Gerard F.]

Re: 1965 Noise from rear wheel - help please !

I am hoping it is just the emergency brake components. I'll pull the rotor tomorrow and check it out. Thanks everyone for the advice.

Mark,

Try that test where you jack it up, and try to rotate the wheel spindle up and down, and fore and aft. Excessive play in that type of rotation indicates a wheel bearing going.

If the bearings are going, it is more like a crunching sound even at slow speed. It didn't sound like that to me at the meet, but I could be wrong. It sounded more like an E brake thing to me, but that is what I thought a few years ago when my drivers side rear wheel bearing failed on the road.

If the rear wheel bearings are going, they cannot be serviced or greased. Time to think about pulling the whole spindle assembly or trailing arm off and sending them out to be refurbed or replaced. If one side is going, the other side soon will be, so do both.

In my case, the cheapest laborwise, and most efficient way timewise, was to replace both trailing arm assemblies with new one's. I used Paragon, but the assemblies came from Ikerd's within a week of ordering. They were actually cheaper through Paragon with the NCRS discount and now I'm on there special discount.

[Paul J.]

Re: 1965 Noise from rear wheel - help please !

Mark,

Check the e-brake, and if that's not it, it's probably the bearing. Jerry has it right, with the weight on the wheel, bearings go crunch, crunch, crunch. U-joints go squeak, squeak, squeak.

While you're checking the e-brake, follow Jerry's advice and see if the spindle has excessive play.

Paul

[Gary R.]

Re: 1965 Noise from rear wheel - help please !

If they have never been rebuilt then you're probably very lucky. There is no good way to try and grease these. They should be a press fit application unless someone slip fit them to service(not recommended).

If the rotors are still riveted on then chances are very likely no one was in there unless they were rebuilt with rivets,which are not needed if setup correctly. The only thing I don't like about re-riveting them is if you need to get into them because a spring popped then you have to redrill them.

This may be of help understanding what you have. Here is an untouched 66 with the spindle removed.I drilled the rivets out. I did not clean it in this picture, there was no grease left in it. You can see the shoes are rusted and the upper spring broken.The pencil is pointing to the inner bearing. Looks ok right?



well here's the bearing after I removed the inner seal which was holding it in place.




The owner was just starting to hear a metal to metal noise. Good thing he stopped and removed the arm.

Here is another bad inner bearing that went too far.

[Mark P.]

Re: 1965 Noise from rear wheel - help please !

Here is another video with the rotor removed and the car running.

All the emergency brake components look fine from what I can see with the rotor off.

The loud noise at the end of the video is the hub no longer turning and the posi unit kicking in. The passenger side wheel continued to turn.

I was able to turn it again using the wheel but it has a lot of resistance.

Based on this is it safe to assume I have a bad bearing ?

If so I'll get replacement trailing arms with rivited rotors and get them installed.

What other components should I change while I am in there ?

1. I was thinking of the brake lines (mine have rounded nuts on the lines)
2. get half shafts rebuilt ?
3. suspension rubber ?

http://www.youtube.com/user/mpellowski#p/a/u/0/pyeOsLSqsh8

Thanks,

Mark

[Dick W.]

Re: 1965 Noise from rear wheel - help please !

I do not know who told you that theses bearing rarely fail, but he was utterly clueless. I have rebuilt many trailing arms from cars with 30-40k on the odometer.

If you have excess play in the spindle, just go ahead and pull both arms and have them rebuilt. You will be money ahead and have peace of mind when you drive it.

[Patrick H.]

Re: 1965 Noise from rear wheel - help please !

Mark,

Bairs will ship you out a box, and you can send in your arm for rebuilding. The timeline is quite reasonable and the guy there who rebuilds them will call you a couple of times along the way to see what you want to do with regard to cost.

I had them redo the halfshafts at the same time, but as an FYI they use cast blast or similar on them, and also the u-joints had blue seals. Both of these are notable items if you are having the car judged. Half shafts can be redone locally to you if there is a driveline service place, and then you can choose the u-joints and finish them as you wish.

Patrick

[Gerard F.]

Re: 1965 Noise from rear wheel - help please !

Mark,

It does sound like there are loose parts of your bearings grinding within the bearing housing from your video.

If you are going to buy complete trailing arm assemblies, make sure you tell them it is a small block, and you want the trailing arms without the rear stabilizer mount holes. Do both sides.

I would also get:

New front trailing arm pivot bolts and shims kit. The slotted shims are easier to install. Best to do the final alignment at a shop.

-New brake caliper hoses and lines for the rear brakes. While you are waiting, you could refurb the brake calipers.

-Check your rear leaf spring bolts, and other attachments to the trailing arm, replace as necessary.

It is really not that hard to exchange the assemblies, I did one of mine in a gravel parking lot, only took a couple of hours. But with an experienced maechanic with me. You are better off having an alignment shop do it. Have the pages from the Assembly Manual and Shop Manual handy.

If you are going to do an exchange with new ones, you might as well leave things assembled so you can take it to a shop when you get the new ones.

Have fun

[Patrick H.]

Re: 1965 Noise from rear wheel - help please !

Be prepared for the possibility that your front trailing arm bolts will not come out unless you torch them out. It is a real possibility.

As Jerry said, consider new bolts. If so, order the bolts AND the trailing arms from the same place, and have them verify that the bolts will fit through the new bushings they install in the trailing arms. The repro brailing arm bolts I purchased did NOT fit through the new Bair-installed bushings. Thankfully I had others I could use.

Patrick

[Tom L.]

Re: 1965 Noise from rear wheel - help please !

I'm just completing a rear suspension rebuild/resto on my'72. If you want to make everything right, take it apart piece by pice and replace what needs to be based on your inspection. Many parts are easy to inspect, some not.

I had no noises from my trailing arms but once the brakes and half shafts were removed it was clear that one was a mess. When I sent them to Bairs, nice people to deal with, they found that both arms were bent.

Upon inspection of my spring I found leaf #6 to be cracked at the bolt. Had to find a new spring. My project was primarily preventative but I did find a bunch of suprises. I'll feel better driving it now. Good Luck!!