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put my car up on jacks today to sort out my rear suspension (3/8" toe out is bad m’kay) and found this:
http://cerient.net/photos/spec_e30/rear_bearing.jpg
i assume this means the bearing seal has failed and will need to be replaced? cv boots were recently replaced and are fine.
That might mean that the wheel bearing’s inner grease seal has failed, but it could be grease from the outer CV joint. In the absence of play or noise from that hub, I’d ignore it for now.
is there any way grease from the outer cv joint can go thru the axle and come out near the bearing? because if not it has to be bearing grease, the boot was recently replaced and is perfect. ever since i’ve owned the car that corner has shown some excess grease build up around the hub and i’ve always ignored it, but the grease currently visible is clearly fresh and in sufficient quantity to fling onto the spring and shock.
My car had some slight seeping in the same area and also I thought the car was making some noise from the rear while hard cornering. Others said it was fine and to move on. Over the winter I replaced he rear bearings and have no more seeping and no noise while on track.
Since its not real hard pull the axle and give it a good inspection removed. If the bearing falls apart when knocking the axle out it was probably ready to get replaced anyway. Better than loosing a bearing at a race weekend.
i pulled the axle and cleaned it off, everything looks and feels normal.
http://cerient.net/photos/spec_e30/2011-07-16_22.35.58.jpg
the bearing inner surface also looks normal as far as i can tell:
http://cerient.net/photos/spec_e30/2011-07-16_22.38.02.jpg
but the outside of the hub housing is covered in thick grease (sorry pics are upside down)
http://cerient.net/photos/spec_e30/2011-07-16_22.37.38.jpg
http://cerient.net/photos/spec_e30/2011-07-16_22.38.20.jpg
http://cerient.net/photos/spec_e30/2011-07-16_22.39.00.jpg
i’ve never had an axle apart before so i’m unfamiliar with how they go together, is it possible for grease inside the cv boot to flow internally to that groove that i marked? it looks like one piece but could it be two pieces threaded together? is there a vent hole of some sort? otherwise i’m at a total loss as to where all that grease came from. the bearing turns smoothly with no play and just a small amount of resistance (and felt fine while driving) so i’m not inclined to replace it but something somewhere is amiss. the cv boots were replaced not too long ago, maybe they were overpacked with grease and that’s what i’m seeing but i’d really like to know how that grease got from inside the cv joint to the outside.
That part just to the right of the groove you mentioned is the seal. If you were to remove the inner clamp and use a punch that hole part would come off with the boot attached and slide down the axle toward the diff. That is at least how it works on the inner cv. The inner cv kits come with the boot already attached to that part. You just simply knock the old one off with a punch. For some reason the outer kits I’ve used are just the boot, so you just remove the clamps slide on the new boot and re-clamp.
So yes I do think you could be losing grease from there!! Sorry layman’s terms, head over to pelican parts and look at the inner boot kit and you will understand!!
thanks greg, so if i understand correctly you think it’s seeping out of the joint at location A right? B and C also look like joints but it’s hard to tell. my plan is to thoroughly clean the joint in question, apply a bead of rtv, smoosh it into the gap as much as possible, and hope for the best.
[quote=“jtower” post=58478]thanks greg, so if i understand correctly you think it’s seeping out of the joint at location A right? B and C also look like joints but it’s hard to tell. my plan is to thoroughly clean the joint in question, apply a bead of rtv, smoosh it into the gap as much as possible, and hope for the best.
http://cerient.net/photos/spec_e30/2011-07-1700.33.08.jpg[/quote]
Yes it would be leaking out of A!! It could not leak out of the others!!
See you at VIR!!
outer cv cover joint covered with rtv and reinstalled on the car. guess i’ll find out in a week if it works.