^^ This. I'd be stunned if you could cause this type of failure on the street.

Havent tracked my car since the beginning of the season, decided to take it easy. Finally getting around to prepping everything for next season and decided to check the hubs. My single spare is good. awesome. check the passenger side--good hub. im thinking to myself "can i go 3/3?" check the driver side hub aaand its the wrong machined one.

if people are reading this thread and still havent checked your hubs, check your hubs.

I was talking to a miata guy at the track today and he told me about having a front hub failure a few weeks ago. He pulled up pictures of the failed hub and sure enough, it was one of these shitty Timkens. The word needs to be spread about this garbage.

Thanks for the info everyone. Gonna go check under the ITA and FProd cars just to be certain. I'll pass the info on to friends at the next club meet too.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...890f50707a.jpg

I just got these two Moog hubs from autozone, had a new Detroit axle hub witout the bad machining but ended up returning it because the flange thickness was 1/3 thinner than the OEM and Moog hubs.
Also did some research on grease and this Red Line grease meets higher specs than anything else that i looked at.

I have 8 detroit axle front hubs, 4 abs, 4 non-abs, all seem to not have the bad machining. I am going to check flange thickness on them compared to OEM to see how different they are.

What is spec flange thickness? I replaced mine but will have to check them when I do snow tire changeover.

I don't want to turn this into a grease debate but I'm curious as to what else you looked at.

The Spec Miata guys all recommend CV2 but around here we've been getting stellar results with the Amsoil Dominator product. Of course, I'm sure almost anything is better than the chinese fish paste grease that comes with the hubs from the factory. :bang:

I have zero idea, I was just going to check based on what the post above me said about there being differences. I was more curious if my Detroit axle was different then my OEM and by how much.

I am going to check all my hubs when I get home.

Also, Dominator>CV2.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...bcb3d69be4.jpg

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...dfcdd83ebe.jpg

OEM NA flange edit:(REAR)
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...a4909b7a48.png



OEM VS TIMKEN FRONTS
Attachment 177878

Attachment 177879

I can't see the flange being a third thinner, maybe the shoulder section, which is where I'm measuring here (OEM vs Timken Shit)

Huh, unless both mt front hubs were changed at some point prior to me getting the car, my hubs look compleetly different and are thinner.

dc2696 is measuring rear hub flanges in those pictures.

Haha durr, ya the NA is a rear but the other two are definitely fronts.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...546c9d855b.jpg

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...6eff8f9816.jpg

I measured an OEM ABS NB2 hub (in red) and Moog hub (in black) measured in 4 places, the OEM hub does have some machining that appears to be for a seccond tone ring but the diameter of the bearrings boss is larger than the Moog hub and tha machining tapers off

This photo shows the much larger radius in the area where the flange transitions to the bearring boss, that is the area where a bulk of the load is concentrated when cornering IMO
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...a1d7f5212f.jpg

Seems the conclusion from this thread is that its preferable to service ( repack ) and reuse OEM vs getting Timken / Moog / ect ?

Pretty much yes, if the balls and races still look good.

My takeaway from this is that there is nothing wrong with an aftermarket hub, provided its made correctly. Just be prepared to do some of your own QC once you get them in hand and return them if you believe they are questionable.

Were people not replacing the ball bearings with better ones when they rebuilt them anyways? I had bought new better balls off eBay to use when I get around to rebuilding mine.

There was an ongoing discussion about doing this, but I was unaware anyone actually doing it. There was a vendor who was going to offer balls, but then we all decided repacking using correct grease or replacing a damaged hub with an aftermarket hub packed with correct grease AND proper brake ducting was easier/cheaper than fancy exotic balls.

:dunno:

The exotic balls I got were relatively cheap on eBay. At least at a price where I had zero issue ordering some.

I guess I don't understand the impetus for replacing the balls. Blindly replacing the balls sounds like a solution looking for a problem. I'm not trying to be contrary or combative, I'm genuinely curious what problem you are trying to solve. Did you have a bunch of galling on the balls and you were trying to salvage the hub?

The hypothesis is that the grade of balls that come with most hubs is insufficient for the job being performed. The grade includes, among other things, acceptable diameter tolerances. So if your balls vary +/- a half thou or something, then as you may imagine, you will end up putting the entire load of that wheel on the 3 largest balls, alone. The other 10 or 12 will just be along for the ride. You've now pinpointed the load on 3 balls, that cant take it by themselves, and they spall due to contact fatique. Of the 3 bearings I killed and took apart, all 3 died from spalled balls. Spalling is direct evidence of a ball receiving to much load. So you either up grade them to tighter tolerance, or batch them into +/-, whatever the acceptable tolerance is.

And I just hate it when my balls spall. (ill dig up some pics)

Makes sense. I guess its not something I've looked into as I've not experienced this failure mode.

So how many noobs are we going to get measuring bearings for concentricity with plastic harbor freight calipers? :giggle:

This is why its not done IMO. Its beyond most users.

Anyone got a CMM?

Exactly ;) I mean, I own a nice Mitutoyo 0-1 .0001 grad +/-.0001 mic but its not something I would expect to find in the average Miata enthusiasts tool box.

Though I would imagine we have a rather larger percentage of users on this forum who DO own such things compared to most other Miata 'communities' :giggle:

So, theoretically, one could have several sets of balls and sort them by size? Ball-matching, to coin a phrase?

Basically what Sean said. It was more of if I am going in to repack the bearings, I might as well throw in better balls to be on the safe side. I think they were like $20 for 100 or something. So cheap enough that I could throw money at it and not care.

I have multiple 0-1", tenths measuring things.



Ive had one OEM, 2 Timkens and 1 china, do this:https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1421895039

Jesus Sean, what did you do to those poor things?

Plus the $150+ tool needed for the level of accuracy required to make this worth while. Just sayin'

I personally think it comes down to duty cycle or use case. I'm not sure we need to send everyone out to buy a mic and bag o' balls every time they repack a hub. The basic 3-4 times a year HPDE + autox or street driving guy can probably get away with a fresh hub, good grease and frequent inspection for quite some time. If you are planning on run a race series on the regular or you already own the tools then yeah, its probably worth the effort.

Of course, you could just go buy blueprinted hubs from FM @ $192/ea, sans studs :eek: https://www.flyinmiata.com/na-nb-blu...ront-hubs.html

I just made up the number above for the example. Assuming the hypothesis is on point, im not even sure what the diameter tolerance severity is.

I have a spare hub that needs disassembled and repacked. If I ever find the time, Ill see what my starrets say about all this. Hell, maybe I can start batching balls for people, and I can sell them in a nice little sack.

SADfab Balls Sack ©

I was not going to use any sort of $150 tool. I bought the same size balls as what should be in there, but of a better spec. One day I will get to it.

Also the FM hubs are not guaranteed to be any better. Many people on here have had the same issues with those. I am pretty sure Hustler had issues with the hubs FM sells.

How do we know the Mazda ball spec?

ball specs
http://www.thomsonlinear.com/downloa...Balls_cten.pdf
G3 or GTFO

These are the balls I bought.

The link, she don't work :dunno:

Ok, who got triggered by the word ball?

edit- back peddled....

Fucking IB Fucking shit up again.

​​​​​​​100 13/32" inch Diameter Chrome Steel G10 Ball Deep Groove Radial Ball Bearings | eBay

We killed one in one track day sharing my car with another driver. So like 11 sessions? All proper installation info was followed and retorqued to the higer setting after getting a heat cycle on them.

My local track, Hallett, is rough and we aren't shy about liberal use of the curbs.

They did warranty the hub which was nice.

I wasn't until I saw SADfab BALL SACK. Where's my safety pin ..

So its probably reflection / ect but I'm seeing what looks to be a bunch of little weld spots on each ball ..
As for buying these off ebay .. they're cheap enough to try but what's the chances that' they're as good as / better than OEM ? Maybe there's obvious answers in the listing, but I'm a noob without $150 of tools to QC.

Have you been able to go back out with the replacement hub ? Curious as to how that held up.

Lol, they're perfectly acceptable ball bearings im sure. Being that they are highly polished steel spheres, I don't think it would be a stretch (its fuking obvious) that those are reflections.

Yea, that's just a reflection. These things tend to happen when you have so many shiny balls crammed together... :naughty:

Hah, it does say "Deep Groove" so I thought perhaps they're not normal perfectly spherical bearings. As I said, noob to this stuff.

No that was a few years ago, and the engine was down on power and pissing oil everywhere so that car got parted after it ate the 3rd engine.

New balls came today. Bought from the seller that Shuiend linked. The exact ones I bought are these, unfortunately either stock are not 13/32 or the ones I was sent were not.

I knew it right when I popped the first new bearing into the plastic retainer. It fell out whereas the old bearing remained in place. Will head to Harbor Freight tomorrow to get some calipers so I can determine the size I was sent. Hopefully can return.

Here's a pic to show the difference. 10 OEM balls on top. 10 eBay 13/32 balls on the bottom.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...ca1ab7ab0f.jpg


Night wasn't a complete bust though, the repacked hub with CV2 was pretty smooth. Can't wait to test it out in the car tomorrow.

I will say I bought the balls completely based on some measurements I saw on here. It is very possible that I bought the wrong size originally. I have yet to repack bearings so I have yet to actually measure them myself.

Im gonna go measure a ball for yall

This mic reads about 3-4 tenths big. So pretty much dead on 13/32".

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...438af9aa33.jpg


Taken from the inside race of a timken hub.
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...psc1fotcpl.jpg

The assumption here is of course that all hubs by all manufacturers all use the same bearings ;)

It happens, I did the same thing without due diligence and double checking .. :rofl:

Thanks for measuring that off Sean. I guess your Timken is 13/32. Now that I think about it, there's no guarantee that even different year OEM have same bearing size. Definitely measure your own before buying if going this route. Unfortunately this will add to downtime in many cases as most won't have spare hubs.

That is correct, Gordon.

Some hubs don't even use the same number of balls. Some of the earlier cars used 11 or 12 balls per race. They are apparently gold to SM players.

Lost a Mazdaspeed HD. It lasted a total of 11 track days (about 20 hours). So, no advantage there that I can discern. I slapped on a repacked China hub with OK machining.

Given how long these hubs last I've given up on the idea of repacking. I just going to for the best quality I can within reason and running them until they go (I always keep two spares with me).

If I don't see a significant durability increase out of the one I just slapped on (I don't have high hopes), I will do exactly the same. I'm really fast at swapping hubs these days.

Yup, I can swap a hub in much less time than the time it would take me to repack...also less messy too.

I made a tool to re-pack my front hubs , it rakes about 3 minutes to pump some fresh grease between track days, is anyone interested in one? My cost is $75 a picece when having 10 made.
i will make a batch if there are takers.
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...6751799df1.jpg
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...f0a58ec3d0.jpg

How does it work? Definitely interested.

You isert the tool from the wheel side and it provides a seal between the front of the hub and the back bearing inner bore forcing the grease through the balls and races, all the old grease comes out the upright side, i was not about to disassemble the bearings every time i re pack them. Let me see if this link works

Kinda like this?