Source for Bearing Spacer Selection Tool and Spacers

[cburkett65]

I found a source for the Spacer Selection Tool and Spacers.

http://www.shopfreedomracing.com/Spacer-Selection-Tool-205-254-T87C-1104-B-U-205-254-U.htm

and

http://www.kiapartsoverstock.com/showAssembly.aspx?ukey_assembly=1067853&ukey_product=7208514

I don't know if the Kia spacer are correct. They have the right thinkness but don't know about the inner and outer diameters. The festiva process for front bearing is like pinion bearing shim selection. I don't think I need to replace my front bearing when I do the brakes but just in case I ever do.

[jfd64]

That is a similar set up to what i have and used to do the bearings on one.Unfortunately mine didnt hold up.I think i would try a buy a shop press if i was going to try to do it myself again.I will probably go back to Napa and pay them the 85.00 parts and labor labor if i need one done again.

[jawja jim]

As the pairing of spacer to hub is so critical, I have never understood why the number isn't hand hammer stamped somewhere on the hub.

[Eaglefreek]

As the pairing of spacer to hub is so critical, I have never understood why the number isn't hand hammer stamped somewhere on the hub.

That would take too much time. Plus, there could be slight variances in the bearings, which may require different spacers. But, usually bearings are pretty accurate in size.

[sketchman]

I think if there were that big a "slight" difference in the bearings, we'd be having many more issues than we do rebuilding our own hubs.

One member claims to have rebuilt plenty of them saying that the spacer thickness is to do with the car the hub is from rather than diffs in parts.

I'm saying the spacer is hub specific. Like I've been told countless times on here. And those hubs, from the 13 in Marion alone that I've pulled and rebuilt for people, among mine have all had the EXACT same spacers. They've all had the exact same preload amount stamped on them. They've been festys from 88-92 (including my originals and the ones I've ran from another festy)

So by that I would just PM frankenfester, order the "Festiva" sized spacer, and try it.

[Rocketman]

The spacers are matched to the knuckle. They're the most difficult part of the assembly to machine, and required several operations to complete, leaving room for small errors to build up.

The spacer compensates for these errors. Most of them are the same # (as pertaining to the Capri, I've done many of them) right around the middle of the selection. I've heard the same about the Festy pieces.

The hub does not bear any pertinence to the preload, just the knuckle, bearings, and spacer. The bearings are made to a very tight tolerance, and should not affect the preload much. Not more than what is permitted in the factory allowance, anyway. (which is rather broad, actually - I think it spans 2-3 spacers)

[Advancedynamix]

I set my hubs at 5-8 in/lbs with dry bearings. I've found it necessary to use different spacer widths on just about every hub I've built. I use a surface grinder to fine tune the spacer thickness to set the preload. The bearings seem to loosen up after a few hundred miles. I made my own preload check tooling.

[Hot_Wheels]

Can someone make a video of this process? Like a how to replace bearings and size shims? I'd love to know how the shimming process is done.

[Eaglefreek]

The bearings seem to loosen up after a few hundred miles.

Not to get sidetracked, but do you think that may be part of the Festiva shake that most have?

[cburkett65]

One of the problems for many of us is that we don't normally have a torque wrench that supports that range in inch pounds. I suppose a 0-60 inch pounds beam style might be good enough. But the 0-30 or 0-60 dial type are better and are quit expensive. I suspect that many machanics would just put in new bearings and reuse the same spacers. I assume that is what most of us would do if we needed to replace the bearing.

[Rocketman]

I got my in-lb dial wrench from Amazon from a bicycle shop, it was around $25 or so.

[F3BZ]

i don't totally buy into the advice to just re-use the spacer that popped out. rocket makes a good point though that as long as quality bearings are used and the same knuckle is re-used, not much should change that would require going through the hassles of checking bearing pre load. still, if you just have to do things right it'd be a good investment to get this rotunda kit that has a lot of other useful tools besides the puller and selection tool. these don't come up as often as they used to on ebay. and sometimes there's a bidding war that drives the price too high but you might get a lucky break. this went for $80 with shipping back in 2010 and strangely i was the only bid.
the kia spacers are the same as the festiva spacers. you can cross check the part# on 4Greens site to make sure it says "pride". and 1/3rd the cost of the kia overstock price.

[Advancedynamix]

Not to get sidetracked, but do you think that may be part of the Festiva shake that most have?

No. I replaced the bearings on Pedro with Timkens and Redline synthetic grease. The dry preload drag was 6 in/lbs on both spindles after custom grinding was done to size the biggest spacers I had in stock. Pedro still had the shakes. I have narrowed it down to out of round tires. We swapped out Barnfinds 12" wheels for some 13" alloys I had and his shake was reduced by quite a bit with tires/wheels being the only change. Also, the wheels we put on weren't hub centric and didn't have rings and ride smoother than the practically new 12" tires on stock steelies. The tires on the 13" wheels are just cheap Sunny 155/60-13's so i doubt they are a perfect circle either, but they are better than those 12's.

[Advancedynamix]

I have found every set of hubs I've done (6 sets to date) to need a different size spacer to be within the factory spec even with quality bearings. After personally grinding shims to get the preload perfect it is a very precision fit in there. .0005" can change the preload a few inch pounds. Even though the bearing parts are held to a tight tolerance, if the tolerance is +/- .001" then there is a world of difference when the two tolerances are added up.

[cburkett65]

Well I could not find the T88C-1000-SF but I found a T88C-1000-ST which contains the knuckle puller and the selection tools. I pulled the knuckle but could had no way to get the hub off. A welder could fab there own puller.