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MG Midget and Sprite Technical - Front wheels bearings again

I know this subject has been round many times before, but it's time for my MoT again, and once more I will probably get an advisory (or even a fail) because I have some slight 'play' up and down in the front wheel bearings. I have changed both sides over the last couple of years. Has anybody any recent experience of buying a bearing set that really fits? We've all heard stories (perhaps from me) of replacing bearings only to find that the play is worse with the new bearings than before the job was started.
Gus Gander

Gus, I think the problem lies with the testers who are not familiar with ball bearings but used to the "feel" of tapered rollers. Other than finding a set of really tight fitting ball bearings conversion to tapered roller bearings might be the best answer for long term trouble free MOTs.
Here is the information from a fellow club member and midget owner about the tapered rollers he is using that fit without any machine work in his '76.
"I was wrong about the maker of the inner rollers that do fit. It is Tyson, not Timken. But there is a number 07097 and the words USA so I'll bet that can be cross refferenced to some available bearing
The numbers on my old bearing and it does say Tyson and USA are a small 6A and 07204 on the bigger race and on the smaller race the numbers are 48 and 07097 and of course again the words Tyson and USA."
Hope you can cross those numbers to something over on your side of the pond.
Bill Young

Bill,

The 07097 - 07204 combo would appear to be a standard inch series taper roller but that only describes the larger one as far as I can see. Have you any details on the smaller outer roller bearing designation.
David Billington

Gus, are you sure that this is bearing wear? Up and down play through the front wheel can also be wear between your King Pin and Stub axle bearings. Get someone to apply the brakes. If the play stops it is bearings. If it remains then it is king pins.
P K Allardyce

David, if I remember correctly the smaller outter bearing is easy to source just by size, it's the inner bearing that's the problem. It has to be thin enough to not space the hub outwards. I can't remember the part number of the outter bearing I used, but it was the inner bearing that was the "problem" when I converted to rollers.
Bill Young

This are numbers I copied off a similar thread in 1996...

Outer: 05066 and 05185
Inner: 07204 and 07097

A
Anthony

I have the same numbers that Anthony. 05066 and 07097 are the bearings themselves and the other two are the cones the press into the hub. I believe that the numbers are industry wide standard numbers interchangable between manufacturers. Mine happen to be Timkin.

Martin
Martin

Thanks for the bearing numbers. Perhaps this is the best way to go rather than just ordering sets from Moss or such. I'd like to keep it as an original Sprite rather than change to rollers. This seems to me to be one more step away from originality, and it always seems to me that once you start on this route, fitting a ford gearbox, tele shocks and the like, then you may just as well have started out to build a kit car in the first place. Each to his own, I suppose.
Still too cold here to get much done, so I haven't been out to the car to do any more investigation, other than to find that the horn isn't working either. I suppose that's bound to happen as it only gets used once a year (for the test...).
Gus

Gus, if you use the correct bearing there's no machine work required and it's like the old advertisment, only your hair dresser will know for sure. There's nothing you will see or feel to tell you the car's not original.
Bill Young

Hi Gus I had a similar problem , it turned out to be the spacers and not the bearings. I found this out after I had bought all new bearings/spacers. When fitted no matter how I tried the bearings just would not lose the the play. Taking the assembly of for the umteent time I checked the old spacers against the new and there was about 7thou over size . Result put the original spacers back in and all OK. Hope this helps (My supplier of the spacers said Oh yes there had been a problem with the size of the spacers!)
bob clarkson

Time for an update, since I've just come in out of the cold, and the report is that I've got rid of the play. I removed the split pin in each hub, removed the castle nut and wiped round it, tightened it up again to it's max, then slacked off again to the next point I could put the split pin in. The wheel now turns freely but without any discernable play. I expect it will return at some point but this should sort out the MoT over the next couple of days. It seems that the play is resulting from the slackening of the castle nut to the next point where the pin can be put in, as this could amount to nearly 1/6th of a turn of the nut. Some sort of shim to the value of half this amount or thereabouts would be useful here, or perhaps I shall have to play with grinding a little off the back of the castle nut.

Two other things: getting the old split pin out of the hub (I have wire wheels) is my nomination for the worst single job around the front suspension. You need long-nosed pliers, but the better the pliers, the less grip you can get because of the distance. Best not to bend the tail of the pin more than necessary when it's fitted, and try to keep the 'eye' of the pin facing you as you fit it. If it turns 90 degrees and drops down into the nut, then you're going to have a problem picking it up again.

The other thing, if it's not occurred to everybody else already, is that these low-energy light bulbs (provided they fit into the space) work very well in an inspection lamp. They seem to be pretty well shockproof and don't give off as much heat when you've got to work close to them (like looking down the hub tube to the split pin, for instance). They take a minute or two to come up to full power.
Gus Gander

This thread was discussed between 18/02/2008 and 20/02/2008

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