Well, took my son out for a ride the '65 the day after Christmas - beautiful sunny day here in the Italian Alps and had to park it at a friend’s house and borrow his car to go back home.

Something gave out at a very slow speed - probably at 10 mph - in the rear passenger side hub - first it felt like a completely flat tire - then it was like the emergency brake was engaged - car would go forward with difficulty and could not be pushed in neutral. I hear a metal on metal sound with every revolution and a shimmy, the tire is sitting at a funny angle - inside on top and outside on the bottom by about 1 inch. I drove it about 200 yards and parked it at my friend's garage, it happened just as we were pulling away to get a cup of coffee nearby.

Tomorrow I will go get it with a wrecker and bring it to a shop of a friend of mine. In the past I would hear on and off a ticking and metal sound - even had a post here - but there was not play and all the suspension and sway bars are new - complete VBP suspension kit - all 4 wheels were aligned 500 miles ago.

Any ideas?

Alex

 

Rear wheel bearing shot, trailing arm bushing or strut rod failure?

 

Sounds to me like the ticking sound might have been a broken spring or something in your E-Brakes.

As for the metal on metal sound and your wheel being at a bad angle, your spindle bearings let go.

Jack the car up and grab the wheel at the 12 and 6 o'clock positions and wiggle it. There are two different things you can move there: the easy one is the spindle bearings and the hard one will be your stub axles inside the pig. Have someone else watch the movement of the wheel and the half shaft as you do the different movements.

My guess is that it will be very easy to move the wheel back and forth and the wheel will hang differently than the other side.

Don't drive with it like this or you run risk of damaging your bearing support as well. Its a pain to repair, but not impossible with basic tools and a little knowledge!!

 

Probly your spindle bearing.
Good luck with the repair and keep us posted.

 

If it is the bearings, think about doing both sides. If they are the originals, they are 40 plus years old and should be replaced. Check the archives on removal and replacement. There is a great amount of info on the forum on the topic. Lastly, send them for rebuild to Van Steel in Florida or Blairs in the midwest. Are you really located in the Italian Alps? Jerry

 

Jerry meant Bairs' in PA.

 

My '71 had that premonition "on and off ticking and metal sound". Luckily they didn't give out before I decided to have them fixed.

 

Thanks for all the replies - got the vette to the shop and put it up on the lift - only visible damage is a superficial scratch in the middle of the disk where the corner or the calliper scraped... tomorrow will disassemble - I called Van Steel and they were very helpful - the freight cost will be killer for me though 60 lbs per arm from Italy to Florida & back. My mechanic has a bearing press in house - he's in his 70s and says that there has never been a suspension that he has not rebuilt - from what I read it seems like it is very complicated on our Vetts.....

tried to post pictures but did not succeed - did something change on this site regarding posting pictures?

Thanks again to all

 

it might be cheaper to just buy new assemblies, only one shipping charge might offset the core deposit.

 

It's not that hard to rebuild. I have done mine twice in 21 years. Get the bearings and a selection of bearing shims. The tool you need is a dial indicator that you can bolt or attach magnetically to verify the play in the bearings, and I would do that on a setup I purchased before installation too - so IMO you need it regardless of whether you rebuild or buy.

"While you're at it" replace the brake backing plates, the rear ebrake line (with stainless), and the ebrake parts and shoes (with stainless), so that you don't have to pop the spindles again to fix ebrakes later. The ebrakes can actually be serviced with the spindles intact, but it's a lot harder. The backing plates can't be changed without removing spindles and they wear at the ebrake pivot slots. If the plates look good, you can have a welder beef up the pivot slots instead.

Post pictures that can be viewed on the web by putting the pic's web address between bracketed img and /img tags.

 

Fixed! Thanks to Ecklers and Fedex. No snags, it was a 5 & 1/2 hour job from start to finish.

Alex

 

That was pretty fast with shipping and all.
Did you rebuild yours or replace the whole assembly?

 

I bought the inner bearing, the outer bearing, the spacer kit and the dust cover - about $100 in all.

The disk brake roter and e brake pads were all fine.

Ordered the parts last Friday & received them in Italy yesterday - this afternoon I was back on the road!

 

What did you set the endplay to?

 

UHhhh, It's not just a bolt together issue and your off! The fella that says, "I've never seen a suspension I couldn't rebuild", might raise a red flag to me??? No ofense intended, but GTR1999 is right to be concerned!

 

GTR, We left play of 2 tenths of a mm. We finally used the shim that was 34 mm - actually started with the 37 mm, then went to 35 then to 34. this was without the grease - once the 34 mm was selected we greased the bearings for the final assembly and then measured the play. The most time consuming part of the project was removing the inner casing of one of the old bearings that had fused to the spindle - fortunately we were able to remove all the bearing without scratching the spindle. After assembly I took it out for a 20 min. test drive and put it back in the lift and everything seems OK. We were somewhat surprised that the bearing let go without making allot of noise first. We also noticed that there is a little more play than 2 mm on the other rear wheel, before the spring will also change the other bearing. Thanks again for all your precious advice! Alex