the_unknown

This is the gap. It is even on all sides which would make sense. I'd imagine it would be difficult to get it that far onto the seating surface if it was ****-eyed. I'm thinking the distance piece at this point was too long and binding the balls against the outer races. I pulled the bearing off last night and everything seemed ok. Nothing there that it should have bound on. I'm just glad I got to drive it some after it's been sitting on blocks for nearly a month. The only "exciting" part of the story was coming back through Morgantown WV on I68 in the pouring rain and having the clutch slip going up the mountain passes. It got a little nerve wracking but I knew I was almost home and could easily get a tow at that point. I've still got some work to do to her but the suspension and brakes are basically done now. I still need to powdercoat the mustache bar but the big oven at my local makerspace isn't quite ready yet.

Well we put the new axle and bearing into the hub and everything is great! It was likely a bearing issue at this point, but I haven't had a chance to rule out the stub. There is a tiny gap that you can see light through on the bad stub between the collar of the bearing and the seating surface. I can barely get my thinnest feeler gauge through it which is 0.0016. I think it just never got fully seated. It doesn't explain why it was binding in the same spot when rotated though. I'm gonna pull the bearing off for the 5th time now and really inspect that surface to see if I can figure it out.At least I have an extra set of hubs and bearings just in case now ? Thanks again for all the help and advice!

Thanks ? I had a friend that lived in Mammoth Lakes CA, only a couple hours from it. He's a pretty good mechanic and said it would make the journey with some basic maintenance. We ended up just changing fluids, bleeding brakes, new thermostat, and tried adjusting the clutch to get it to stop slipping at load in 4th and 5th. We decided to try the journey to SLC and if there were any major issues, just get it towed the rest of the way. He followed me to my brothers house in SLC and we had no issues. I rolled the dice and got it home the rest of the way weith the slipping clutch. It should have been scary and I shouldn't have made it in hindsight but it ended up being a boring story. Nothing broke save for a fuse that wasn't making good contact in the fuse block. It has a L28 with twin SUs and a 5 speed, it's seems pretty damn bullet proof!

She's a 72, # 55375 If I recall correctly. Bought her in the fall of 17 in Californina and drove her sight unseen home across the country to VA

I measured the old one and it was out of spec by about 0.02 mm. We also created some distance pieces on the lathe that were within spec. I measured the "new" used ones and they are square and measured in at 52.52mm and 52.50. I swear if this doesn't fix it I'm gonna go 5250... amirite?!? I'll see myself out.

Quick Update: Just had everything arrive last night. I received two used axle stubs with companion flanges and B distance pieces so that should solve the issues. I need to blast and powdercoat one of them before I install it in the housing and I should be ready to go on Friday

We used a hydraulic press to seat everything and inspected all mating surfaces. I'm 99.9% certain it isn't a seating issue at this point.

I think it's the stub too. Being a scientist, i love the forensics stuff too. If it is a bearing issue, I am going to measure every little part of it and see just how much a difference made. if it's off by less than a thousandth, I will be very surprised by the precision required to make that whole system work.

Yup bearing is staying attached to the stub. I will likely test everything out once I get it running and then reach out to timken if the bearing was faulty. I'm really curious now as to what has failed.

We had the "bad" axle in and out more than a few times, then switched axles and the problem went away. We installed the bad axle in the other good housing and it locked it up too. So it's definitely an issue with the stub axle, bearing, or a small chance it's the distance piece.

He's been teaching me to run his lathe so I may give this a shot as practice for measuring the runout. Just not sure how accurate the initial tooling holes. The hubs aren't in terrible shape but they aren't perfect either and I'm not sure I can get an accurate reading based on the surface rust on the hubs. The stock distance piece was fairly square and pieces we turned were square down to .00001. Neither made a difference in the binding. I haven't ruled it out yet but it's low on the list. New stubs should be here tuesday and I'll post a (hopefully happy) update then. That's what I've always heard and never had an issue with their bearings. I'd be surprised if that was the culprit.

We tried using his metal lathe to test run out and used the housing with axle and the measured the runout against the hub. It was over a thousandth at that point but still difficult to tell. I should have the stubs in next week and plan to toss new bearings into it just to try and eliminate that possibility. So far, the only thing we have ruled out is a housing issue. It could still be a bent stub shaft, bearing, or distance piece issue (I ordered those most liekly culprit to least likely culprit. I forgot we re used the stock distance piece but I doubt it is that as none of the sizes that we machined and tried made a difference on the first housing. I'm more curious than annoyed now as to what the hell it could be. I hope it isn't a bearing issue, I thought timken made some of the best bearings for these cars.

Already ahead of ya, I ordered new timken bearings on and plan on discarding the old ones or keeping them as backups. Both inner and outer have seen some abuse by being pressed in and out a few times so i'd rather just be safe and do it right instead of doing it twice. Thanks again for all the insight.

So I swapped the other stub shaft in and it fit just fine. We also put the suspect one into the other housing and it was binding in that housing too which means it's an issue with the shaft or outer bearing. We used feeler gauges to check under the outer bearing collar and the gap was the same all the way around which leads me to believe its an issue with the stub shaft. I've got a set of two new used ones on order from ebay that should be here next week. Hoping that fixes it and I can enjoy some of this nice spring weather soon.

I'll definitely be taking a bunch of photos and carefully inspecting and measuring everything tomorrow assuming the other stub axle binds as well. I will need to do a long write up regarding their QC on here and maybe Hybrid Z as well. I documented a lot of what I've done on a thread in the Off Topic section of a Subaru forum but this would be good to put in Z focused forums as well. I've been working on doing fronts and rears since January now and I'm still not close to being done now.