Whilst cleaning up the rear suspension of the AK today, I finally removed the rear brake pipes - leaving the arms free to rotate damn near 360deg on the crossmember.

This, of course, has revealed that the arm bearings are a tad notchy, but not THAT bad. Less than 80k km from new, but 34 years behind them.

Replace? £60 x 4 is not really something I fancy doing as a matter of routine.

C'mon, folks. Argue it out...

If you grab the wheel and feel for play, is there any? If not, let the bearings rock'n roll some more. You are probably not taking her out on a world tour anyway?

Just remove the arm and inspect/put some new grease in.

The wheel is nowhere near the suspension arm, which is nowhere near the chassis, which is nowhere near the bodyshell... <grin>



I like mechanicals - especially suspension - to be in very good nick. I drive them fairly hard, and love the "feel" of a good one. Or something...



May just do that.

Adrian,
as Eirikj has advised, always best to strip the arms off the axles and check the bearings during a chassis change.
I always do that and have had to replace quite a few bearings, most because they'd started to rust but others because they were heavily indented/brinelled.
You may be surprised at how little grease was used during assembly, at least on the later cars...

ken.

Money talks

Yep. More I think about it, the more I think I'm cutting corners in not doing so. Anything in particular I need to worry about with removing the old outer bearings? Presumably, if they fall apart, they were knackered anyway.



Well, this is '74, so dunno about "later"... But I s'pose the grease is like earwax by now.

Adrian,
the outer race usually falls out in to the pile of rust and dirt when you take the retaining ring off, the inner race is a bit tricky as the bearing sits close to the dust seal and the shouldering for the chassis mounts. A sharp chisel,old screwdriver can be "persuaded " in there to get it started then its a case of drifting it off.

The cups in the arm can be punched out a little at a time going at it at opposite points
Use the old races to drift the new ones in to the arm
the cones on the cross tube just need drifted on with a soft punch, can be tricky getting it started

nothing too taxing just take your time and dont hit the race with the hammer

Sean

Adrian,
f.y.i. < http://www.flickr.com/photos/30132857@N06/?saved=1 >

This axle was from a 1988 car, with about 90k miles on the clock and since the bearings were fine, all that was needed was plenty of grease and putting back together.

On the other hand, if a collection of rusty rollers falls out when the arm is removed, things aren't going quite so smoothly.
On the last car I rebuilt, which was also an '88, _all_ of the bearings on the rear axle were shot.
I guess the missing plastic end caps had a lot to do with that, a result of the original chassis having been changed by a main dealer under Citroen's corrosion warranty scheme?

ken.

Shouldn't be a problem here, then... I don't think the rear drums have even been off - the last person to go near any of this stuff was in the factory.

Nice original van then, at least you know it had a good life in 17