Real Fiero Tech

My old one? A broken piece of crap. Got the new one from Rodney Dickman today, and I hope it lasts,
as the word here seems to be that they fail. I drove with it on, and my car runs quieter than I had even imagined it would.
No vibrations, loud noises, or other things that go bump in the night. It took me all of 20 minutes to install it.

Here's a pic of the old hub in the vise:



The back end is just a cap. I clamped it too hard in the vise as you will see.





Okay, so the next thing that has to come off after the cap is this sleeve or collar or whatever you want to call it.
It has bits of it pressed into a groove cut into the spindle to keep it from slipping off.
The bottom part of the thing is flanged and holds two halves of thing that I guess press down on a steel ring.



I use a hacksaw to cut the top half off:


After more filing and prying, I got the bottom half of the collar thing off. See flange.


See one half of the thingy things:


Twenty minutes and a lot of hammering later, I have everything apart, except for the metal ring that holds it all together,
the top race ring, I have no idea what this is called, but the bitch never came off all the way.
I got carried away with the hammer and squashed the end of the spindle, but
I have a solution for those of you who want to deal with this crap later and not mess it up.



Can you now see why my bearings made so much damn noise?


The ball bearings and plastic holder things. They're broken because I broke them getting them out.





Both ends of the outer race look fine. Any marks are from my noggling it up with a screwdriver or hammer.





Another shot of the chewed up spindle. There are about 5 such marks, spaced the same as where the ball bearings were. I have no clue how it got like this.




HOW TO GET IT APART THE RIGHT WAY:

USE A HARMONIC BALANCER PULLER!!!!!!.

The end of the spindle has a divot for it, and you will be able to pull the big steel ring off after you cut off the top half of the other thing. I suppose you would have to have a machine shop resurface the spindle and/or outer race if they're disfigured like mine. Good luck finding new seals.

Starlite528 wrote:Another shot of the chewed up spindle. There are about 5 such marks, spaced the same as where the ball bearings were. I have no clue how it got like this.

Did your car sit for a long time before you got it? That can happen when a (usually unsealed) bearing sits for a while and the balls/rollers get condensation on them which then corrodes the race. You must not have driven it very long like that or the outer race would be fucked up too.

Thanks for the advice and pictures. I have one of these that I'm probably going to pull apart soon to see what I can see.

Someone on the Fiero Racing List (maybe George Ryan) has pulled one of those apart, repacked the grease reset the preload and then tack welded the ring to the spindle and said it worked fine and lasted longer than stock.

It was sitting for a while, but I don't know for how long. It couldn't have been for more than a year. I've been driving it for about a year and a half now, and the thing has vibrated since I got the car. It only started getting worse a few months ago.

Interesting topic for 88 owners. I see that Rodney nolonger has the front 88 bearings listed on his site.

I have heard that he may be working on (like the GM bearing hubs) or better front wheel bearings. Guys, for those that say the e-bearing units fail can be a possibility...but think, the fiero isn't a race car. If your racing and sliding all over the track from autocrossing, that is abusing the car. Most 88 fiero owners just drive their car on public roads. In terms of racing, anything can / will fail after constant abuse.

I never tried Rodney's or the fiero store bearings, but a proven long lasting 88 front wheel bearing would be a good upgrade / replacement for us seeking these hubs...

A couple years ago, I looked through a cartridge wheel bearing / hub catalog (I think Federal Mogul) and found that the front 88 Fiero wheel bearing has the smallest hub face to mounting flange distance of any hub unit available.. a replacement will have to be custom in some way, or require a revised spindle.

One of these days I want to tear apart one of the 88 bearings on the shelf (the single bad one) and see what the options are for modifying the shaft surface on the hub and cleaning up the ID of the housing to see if I can find some conventional taper roller bearings for it. Possibly thread the ribbed end of the shaft for a castle nut/cotter pin... from that day forward it would be a rebuildable unit with off the shelf parts.

Bubbajoe is looking into modifying the rear wheel bearing from a FWD caddy for use with the 88 front. I think he is going to try to slide the hub/shaft/bearing combo into the 88 front housing.

Starlite528 wrote:It was sitting for a while, but I don't know for how long. It couldn't have been for more than a year. I've been driving it for about a year and a half now, and the thing has vibrated since I got the car. It only started getting worse a few months ago.

You might be able to repair that race by having it hard chromed. I'm not sure how you'd grind it back to size/shape afterward, though.

The Dark Side of Will wrote:

Starlite528 wrote:It was sitting for a while, but I don't know for how long. It couldn't have been for more than a year. I've been driving it for about a year and a half now, and the thing has vibrated since I got the car. It only started getting worse a few months ago.

You might be able to repair that race by having it hard chromed. I'm not sure how you'd grind it back to size/shape afterward, though.

It's far too late for that now. That thing ended up in the garbage long ago.

I've successfully installed Fiero rear hubs into the front of my $2009 Challenge Formula. The car weighs a bit over 3000 pounds. So far I've put about 3000 miles and some autocrossing on all season tires and things seem to be holding together well so far. To put the rear hubs up front, you have to bore the knuckle out about .030-040" (going by memory), add a bit of a radius to the hub bore, elongate the mounting holes on the hub itself, grind the rough cast backside of the caliper mounting ears smooth, and use early Impreza rotors with the stock calipers. This increases the hub face from the knuckle face distance about 7mm IIRC.

If somebody wants to mount rear hubs to the front of their '88, I can provide more specific details. If somebody wants more robust hubs (like the 5x115 hubs) or adjustable tapered roller bearings that are serviceable, my execution would not serve this purpose. If somebody wants to use the same hubs on all corners, wants more readily available replacement parts, wants cheaper replacement parts, wants higher quality replacement parts, or has worn out front hubs and some spare time and spare parts laying around, then my execution might be of interest.

Bryce