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.

https://technotoytuning.com/nissan/240z/evolved-rear-coilover-conversion-datsun-240z Those are the ones I purchased. I don't have any closer up photos yet and I won't until tomorrow. One of the biggest things I noticed right off the bat is that there is no grease storage cavity where the distance piece goes like the stock housing has. Not sure if it would matter or not.

I think he is seeing it on one axle but I will confirm tomorrow. I just reread some of my texts with him and he said it was less than a thousandth of run out. He seemed pretty confident it wasn't a bent stub shaft. I haven't been impressed with T3's product so far. They look pretty but I've had multiple other issues with these coilovers.

I have a feeling that's what I'm going to spend most of my day doing (talking with T3). I can't seem to find anyone else that has used their setup either to see if I am the first person to run into this issue. I forgot to mention that before tightening down the companion flange, he measured runout at 0.001 of the stub shaft.

I've got new wheel bearings coming in tomorrow so that should help rule out a faulty new bearing. I will also get a chance to try the other axle stub then too. My buddy did some measuring on the new t3 housing. Keep in mind these are the fabricated ones and not the converted ones from people sending in their cores. According to his measurements, the space between the seating surfaces is longer than the B housing / the stock unit. The bearing bores are slightly smaller than the stock unit as well and are a little more out of round. When he says small, I'm assuming a thousandth or two. I'm starting to think that the new housings were warped from the heat during welding and are slightly warped in one way or another. The seating surfaces could look like this _/-----\_ or like _\------/_ instead of _|------|_ if that makes sense. Sorry for the crappy ASCII art.

Zed Head, thanks for posting those threads. I had read some of them but not all yet. CO, Everything pressed in smoothly on both sides. We even mic'ed the distances from the housing to the bearing and were within 1-2 thousandths of each measurement for both sides. I think the plan of attack for the next go is to modify my calipers to measure everything, rip it all apart, clean everything, inspect it, and measure. Then, if neccesary, machine a spacer to the proper spec if none of the ones I have now will fit. The surface grinder was used on the ones that we turned on the lathe. We had fairly square pieces and did both sides to ensure a parallel cut. Mic'ing the surface at multiple spots showed that they were parallel. Thanks for the help ?

When torque is applied and the it just starts to bind, it will spin smoothly, then catch at a certain point in its rotation, then spin freely once past the catch at the same point. After ~50 ft/lbs it locks completely up. I pulled the other side off that spins ok and am going to try that stub axle in the problematic housing. That should tell me if the stub is bent or not.

I don't have pics of the parts yet just the machining process but I can at some point this weekend. I am doing the work at a buddy's shop. He has a Lathe and magnetic grinder which can make cuts by the 0.0001 range. I did make sure to put the outer bearing with the seal and collar face down (towards the flat part of the flange similar to pics in this thread) "They" is techno toy tuning. I bought their evolved coilover setup which, according to their e-mail, is based on the B series housing measurements. (It's supposed to be 2.068" to 2.072") I haven't figured out a way to accurately measure their inner housing distance with the precision neccesary yet. I'm in the tens of thousandths range with my measurements and not single digits like it should be. We were thinking that the distance piece was too short and the bearings were being clamped against the races when torqued.

Sorry for bumping an old thread but this is the most relevant one I could find. I am having the same issues as the OP. I have tried everything I can think of but anytime I begin to torque down the companion flange, the axle binds and locks up. I'm using all new TIMKEN bearings and they are hydraulically pressed in. I upgraded to t3 coilovers, and after a few back and forth e-mails, they are using the "B" series housing as a baseline. The B series distance piece was measuring a hair out of spec by about 0.002" and so we turned a couple of spacers to try and pick up the slack. No luck there as were still binding. It can't be the dust seal as I removed that early in the process to eliminate it from the equation and it would still binds without it. I'm down to my last bit of stock to make a spacer and I am running out of ideas. The only options I can think of are 1) I'm inaccurately measuring everything and the spacers I have previously made are too small. 2) The Stub axle is bent. I'm not sure the stub axle is bent as when it is initially pressed in via the hydraulic press, it can spin freely. Any ideas?