How To: C15a Wire-3 restoration

[Jordan Baker]

Today I got a bit of time in the shop. Everything started off well as my bulk order of grease nipples arrived and a tap and die in 3/4-16 for cleaning the threads on the connecting rod pins. (thanks Amazon two day free shipping).

I made up one of the handy greasing bolts as described by Phil Waterman for adding new grease to the 928 bearings. I soaked them in some cleaner to get the old grease loosened up inside. A few squirts of the grease gun and they were freshly greased.

Then things turned frustrating. I went to install the bearings into the knuckles and one went in fine. The second one would not go in straight and kept binding. 1hr later and I’ve called it quits.

[rob love]

Put the bearing in the freezer, and warm up the knuckle with the propane torch. It really does make a difference.



There are induction heaters that we use for heating bearings before installation onto shafts. Same principles.

[Jordan Baker]

Thanks for the tip. I’ll give that a try.

[Jordan Baker]

So I finally managed to get the king pin bearings installed after a few hrs of frustration. I realized I had done some minor damage to the ball socket when removing them in the press. The hole for the 928 bearing outer edge had been squished ever so slightly. This kept causing the bearings to go in and then grab on one side. I fixed it up using a sanding drum in my dremel going very slowly until the bearings press fit in.

With the time I had today I did get the left side CV joint back together and mounted in the inner and outer knuckle. The pivot pins went in fine

Two questions that did come up due to not taking enough pictures.

In my first picture you can see the splined shaft, then the grease slinger and then the bearing cone. Should the raised lip on the grease slinger be facing the bearing? If the lip is towards the CV joint the slinger doesn’t sit flush. The second question is about the bearing and it’s fit on the splined shaft. It sits loose on the shaft with a considerable gap. Is that gap supposed to be there? It does match up with wear marks on the slinger

[Jordan Baker]

The right side steering knuckle is all rebuilt. The only thing left to do is put some safety wire through the 4 bolts. Can anyone post a drawing of how the wire should go?

[Bob Carriere]

Hi Jordan

Were you able to set up your bearings with the required shims as per the shop manual????

Doing a great job....messy but great.... I used Moly grease for the front axle.... took weeks to get it all out from under my finger nails....... that is when I discovered that rubber/latex/vinyl gloves from Princess had an expiration date....... never stock up when on sale!!!!!! they dry up sitting on the shelf.

Cheers

[Jordan Baker]

Yes the shins were fine. The caps already had all the shims and everything lined up just fine. I made sure to mark each shim cap so they all went back on in the same spot.

Now to my annoyance, I discovered I forgot to install the outer front hub bearing spacer before I installed the bearings. I fear the bearings won’t come out without damage and I’ll have to order new ones. But I’ll go carefully and slowly.

[Tony Smith]

Originally Posted by Jordan Baker

Can anyone post a drawing of how the wire should go?

As the final position of each bolt and it's safety wire hole will be in a random orientation, there is no "Authorised" pattern or layout to follow. The wire is just there to ensure the the bolts don't unscrew in an anti-clockwise direction. sometimes the wire can run direct to the next bolt, sometimes it needs to be wrapped once around the head of the bolt, always in a clockwise direction.

Some people run the wire in a square around the perimeter, some in an "X" pattern across the middle. Sometimes a single strand is used, other times a twisted pair of wires are used to increase tension. All are good, as long as the wire is run to prevent the bolt heads from turning anti clockwise.

[David Herbert]

Tony,

What a nice drawing, showing most of the possible orientations. As you say, the wire is there to stop the bolts unscrewing so ideally should be in tension on both sides of the bolt head if the bolt is trying to undo. Another way to look at it is that the wire between two bolts should be trying to tighten both bolts as it is under tension. Otherwise one bolt undoing is trying to take the next bolt with it.

Bob,
I was taught not to use molly grease on anything with ball or roller bearings as it is so good that it can make the balls/rollers skid rather than roll. Quite what harm this would do was never explained as it seemed to me that any flatspotting would need metal to metal contact and that would make the rollers roll way before any harm was done. Maybe some sort of partial skidding was meant but what do you think ?

David