Final drive output bearing - Wheel play - Brake rotor play

I have answered your duplicate of this post on the UK forum…agreeing with the above that the simplest solution is to replace the o/p shafts…and given details of where in the UK you can get refurbished units with new bearings and sealsalready fitted…also SNGB sell a replacement for original type bearings with the shims needed…Steve

Yes, but I think you will find that the spacers they supply suffer the defects I pointed out in my earlier Post and the bearings have no pre-load whatsoever. The Taper Roller bearing assembly swap is the better course.

Brent

I have only swapped out a few hundred of them. They seem to work so far.

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Whatta you know?

:grimacing:

Hi Rui,
The following pictures should erase your concern about the taper roller bearing housing not fitting into an earlier Salisbury differential.

The following picture is of a diff housing used in an S3 E Type showing the internal detail where the original double row, angular contact bearing fits.

The next picture shows the bearing housing for the taper roller bearing system.

The following picture shows the bearing housing started into the output shaft bore of the diff housing:

The following picture shows the bearing housing right home:

The final picture shows the internal detail of the bearing housing in place. Of course, the bearings and output shaft would be assemble into the bearing housing before assembling the complete unit into to diff housing.

Brent

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@BrentKeats many thanks for having gone through all the trouble to illustrate the situation so well :slight_smile: Really appreciated.
Also to @Dick_Maury to reassure that the transformation will work after his very many successful conversions. Clearly the drawings in the E-Type and XJ6 Workshop are not accurate showing a difference where the inner roller bearing in the differential case sits.

News from this side: After Brexit i get my parts through SNG - Netherlands, and they were not aware of the shims. Thanks to Steve @MGCJAG info , I contacted SNG UK, who promptly told me the they supply the bearing with the right shims (Brent, I will come back to you following your advise on quality of replacement shims, if you don’t mind) . They were not aware of the conversion using XJ shafts but told me that they will try to get more info and come back to me.

On the final solution, I currently live in Belgium where a normal reaction is ‘pas possible Monsieur’ (happy to have Belgium enthusiasts contradicting me :slightly_smiling_face: ) and it is difficult to source services and parts on an individual basis compared to other places where i lived before and definitely more than in the UK. Last year i got all I needed for a fuel injection conversion from a scrapyard in the UK ( I have restored all but not installed yet) with no issues. This year parts from UK suppliers had to go through customs and took two-three weeks to arrive.

I will report progress.

Kind regards
Rui

Hi Rui,
If you’re going to go the alternate, 27mm wide bearing way, I’ll post what the OD of the outer spacer should be. Ask SNGB what the OD of their outer spacer is and if significantly smaller, I wouldn’t waste my money. Simply get the bearings from your local bearing supplier and have the spacers made.

The conversion to the Taper Roller bearing system is still the better solution and you have all the info you need. They will fit without any modification to any part, simply set the pre-load for the bearings and install the assembly.

Brent

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Thank you @BrentKeats , I just asked SNGB for details. if you can post the OD, my measuring says it should be 71,5 but that’s a layman opinion.

Also stay tuned: I got in touch with someone who says he has a stock of old original SKF 29mm bearings- It seems a credidble source but I will only believe when i have one in front of me, will let you know.

I think i will have to go for the simplest solution not being in the UK or US but still trying to get feedback from AJS engineering on the possible supply of a XJ6 preloaded bearing solution.

Light at the end of the tunnel !

Rui

Hi Rui,
Not even close. Both spacers, but particularly the the spacer for the outer race, should be extensions of the actual bearing. With the original 29mm wide bearing, the leading lip of the oil seal should protrude from the inner face of the of the seal housing that bolts to the differential housing and make contact with the face of the bearing’s outer race. With the 27mm wide bearing, this lip should make contact with the face of the outer spacer.

The bore that the seal holder spigots into is 74.6mm and once the male feature of the seal housing that locates in this bore starts into the bore, you no longer have any control over the radial positioning of the outer spacer. With an outer spacer of OD 71.5mm, it will drop to 6 o’clock in the 74.6mm bore (there is no scope for the spacer to locate in the bore where the bearing fits) and there will be a 3.1mm gap between 12 o’clock of the spacer and the bore; this will absolutely guarantee that the seal will leak.

We make the OD of the outer spacer 74.55mm so that its good location, running fit in the bore.

Brent

Hi Brent @BrentKeats very clear thank you again.

On the 27mm bearing adaptation
I see now what you mean, the spacer for the outer racer actually needs to mach the size of the bore where the seal sits, indicated in orange, which indeed is 74.6 , instead of the bearing outer diameter of 71,5mm, in blue I didn’t spot this before.

The problem remains on the sealing qualities, as you say on the original bearing, due to the shape of the outer race, the seal bites the inner part of the outside with a 1mm overlap, and i can feel a very good sealing. In fact I had not a single drop of oil coming out from the case. On the 27mm bearing the side is flat, meaning the seal will be face-to-face and no tolerance to the slightest gap, which needs to be very well controlled with the adjusting shims. And likely bigger problems in the long term with seal deforming , it was not meant to work like that.

A question remains: Is then the largest shim placed under the seal. If not, and if placed between the shim and the bearing, i see still another problem, leaks between the bearing and the shim.

Preloaded retrofit I now understand why this is the way forward . I managed to call Alan from AJSEngineering (thanks @MGCJAG ), a very nice chap that will try to send me a RHD retrofit despite of all Brexit complications. Lets see if it works

Original Bearings So after a few tries I did manage to contact the supplier referred also by @inlinesix Terry , when i said i´d be interested in 100 Units . He says there is an old stock of 106 in Russia. Information seems credible as the measures he indicated are correct and made by SKF. He´s willing to process an order of at least 20 Units at a round 46€ each + taxes + shipment costs. If anyone is interested let me know, but according to Alan those bearing are likely 40 yrs old at least.

Conclusion: I will try to go for the preloaded bearing conversion, I hope it will work with AJSEngineering and that Alan manages to ship. I will do it only on the RH side as the LH side has zero play and zero leaks . Unless, of course, anyone opposes :wink:

Rui


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Weeeeeell…yer in there, and do you REALLY wanna take it all apart again, when/if the other side goes bad?

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Hi Rui,
The seal will seal as well on the correct spacer as it does on the original 29mm wide bearing. The seal is pressed into the housing with no shims of any description under it. This should result in circa 1.5mm of the seal protruding from the housing. This protruding lip will press against the face of the spacer when the housing is bolted into place and with the correct amount of shims between the face of the diff housing where the seal housing bolts and the inside face of the seal housing. The procedure is well explained in the Jaguar workshop manual.

If you can confirm and get some sort of guarantee that the bearings aren’t rusted, then they would be a good solution. The concept of angular contact bearings with preload built into them is a good one. CNC machine tool spindles mostly use an arrangement of angular contact bearing, back to back, front to front, and sometimes, opposing sets of front to back, with built in pre-load. These spindles in 24/7 production environments will rev in a few months what the E Type Jaguar output shaft bearings will in their lifetime x 2.

Exactly what Pual said. If you make the conversion, do so to both sides. If you go with the correct 29mm wide bearing, replace both sides. It beats the heck out of having to pull it all down again in the future; its good insurance.

Brent.

I understand - but he fact is that the bearing was good, the reason for play on the RHD was the inner tab on the washer locking the nut keeping the bearing in place broke and it started to undo, causing the play.

I took the IRS out because of a broken handbrake pad, went on putting new calliper and Rotors because the ’ do i want to take it out again ? Then i went on to new shocks and springs for the same reasons (even if they were working very well they were a SPAX model not made since 1990) , new radial arms… I will try to stop before i get an F-Type instead of an E-Type :wink: But i do see your point Paul and Brent @Wiggles @BrentKeats . Actually looking at the Diff case it looked new… Will sleep over it , i’ve been having nightmares with big rollers rolling after me already :slight_smile:

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I see Brent, clear where it goes. I trust experience more than anything else, only that the current setting with the lip of the seal biting the inner part of the outer racer seems so more reliable, i can even feel a ‘click’ when i place the outer race over the seal, it does not move. I understand well the shim concept in the manual but i can’t help having a feeling that a minimum play or a slighter thicker shim (or deterioration of seal with use) will cause a leak, while the original solution has 1mm end-play tolerance as the lip of the seal will still be inside the outer ring. SNGB still did not come to me on the OD.

On the original bearings, my preferred solution after all, they did not reply to my request of sending one sample, so I could end up either with 20 precious bearing or with a pile of rust …

Thanks, Bernt.

:joy::rofl::smile::grinning:

Hello Rui,
I really don’t know what you’re talking about, or where you got the 1mm end play tolerance from.

The shims that are determined to be used between the face of the seal housing and the face of the side of the differential are such that the inner face of the seal housing will nip up on the face of the bearing’s outer race and the lip of the seal will press firm against the face of the bearing’s outer race.

The exact same thing occurs if an outer spacer of the correct OD and ID is used. The inner face of the seal housing will nip up on the face of the Outer Spacer and the lip of the seal will press firm against the face of the Outer Spacer. If you have an Outer Spacer with an OD close to the ID of the spigot bore in the differential for the seal housing and an ID circa the ID of the bearing’s outer race, that which is described in the previous sentence can’t be avoided from happening.

Brent

Hi Brent @BrentKeats , all

Apologies I was not clear. Here is what I meant: looking at here

The seal protrudes ~1,5mm from the face of the seal housing. When in place, the face of the bearing outer race touches the face of the seal housing, and the seal gets a tight fit inside the original 29mm bearing outer race, like two Lego parts. No way oil leaks can happen with a good seal. With 1mm play i only meant to illustrate that I can slightly get the seal housing and the bearing apart by a few tenths of mm and still have no oil leaking as the seal is still running inside both parts.

For the replacement bearing, your recommendation on the ID and OD of the spacer is key and make the whole difference, considering that the replacement bearing has a flat side wall and therefore when applied directly the seal will not get in the outer race of the bearing but to will be face-to face against it and the ´lego´effect lost. With the spacer ring between the bearing and the seal housing Two cases are possible:

(1) The ID of the spacer is exactly the same as the original OD of the original bearing. Then the seal will get inside the spacer , with the ´lego effect´

(2) The ID of the spacer is smaller that the OD of the original bearing: Then the seal face (and not the protruding side) will be in contact with the side-wall of the spacer with no ´lego´ effect anymore.

Situation (1) seems exactly the same as the original bearing situation but in fact there will be a potentially non-water-thight metal-to-metal contact between the face of the 27mm bearing and the face of the spacer and I wonder how this may cause leaks. In practice, this situation would be the same as a seal case with a protruding seal contacting metal-to-metal against the bearing face. Could this be solved with a very thin seal glued on the side spacer face contacting the bearing ? Permatex/hylomar or is this a naive idea :slight_smile: ? For a more professional solution, one of the spacer faces could be coated with e.g… teflon or something,

For situation 2, we have not only the problem in (1) but also a waterthighness that will be dependent on the pressure exerted on the seal against the bearing wall, and the seal does not seem to have been designed to work without the ´lego´effect.

I should have made a video to illustrate it in a easier way…

I also see that SNGB solution, at least from the photo as not indication of measures have been provided yet seems to be (2) . That may explain the leaks @MGCJAG complained about.

Am I still missing something ?
Thank you again and apologies for this long rant :slight_smile:

Regards
Rui

Hi Rui…with your original setup the protruding lip of the oil seal does not slot into the bearing like a “leggo”…it just touches the lip of the outer race of the bearing…as you tighted the houseing down the seal lip to bearing contact is just squashed together. …can be seen in tne technical drawings in one of your posts above…not a very good oil seal design and probably one of the reasons this set up was later revised . Steve

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Hi Rui,
It’s as Steve says.

I should add that we use a different seal if using the original double row, angular contact bearing, or the narrower, 27mm wide alternative. The OD of the bearing is actually 72mm, not the 71.5mm you’ve been stating and it’s not an interference fit in the bore of the differential housing; you may recall that you would have had little trouble removing the output shaft assembly. The only thing that stops the outer race of the bearing from rotating, is the square section “O” ring towards the bottom of the bore, a little bit of friction with the bore and the 0.003" crush of the lip of the seal. We (two mechanical engineers) feel this is not sufficient, particularly when the split bearing with pre-load is used.and have seen evidence of the outside bearing race having spun in the bore.

The seal used is an off the shelf seal with the same OD/ID, but only protrudes only circa 0.15mm from the inside end of the seal housing. We use shims between the flange face of the seal housing and the differential, so that the inner end of the seal housing has 0.002" axial interference with the face of bearing’s outer race. When the bolts for the flange are tightened the lip of the seal makes contact with the face of the bearing’s outer race and compresses the 0.015mm (0.006") until the end of the seal housing contacts the face of the bearing.

Brent

Hi Steve , In the original setting it is definely not squashed -at least in my case. It does go in, thight fit. I made a short video illustrating. I’m am electronics /telecom engineer , so what do I know about bearings, ,but would i have designed it I would have done
it that way, seems logical and fools proof ? But it does need a matching seal and bearing pair.

The drawings can be misleading , if you look at them carefully the conversion would never be possible , and it clearly is. From the drawing the upper part is squeezed but much less clear in the bottom …

Unless I have a special version ! :flushed:

@BrentKeats see above , I see how the ‘squeeeze’ technique can work it gaps are strictly respected , making it a case mostly for professionals , you don’t want to learn by trial and error on this one :slightly_smiling_face:.

But how do you solve the spacer metal to metal contact issue with the bearing , os that nor a problem ? I uploaded a second shot video illustrating , which I had made before I read your post .

.

One important finding after your post , my O-rings at the end of the bore have a O-shaped section and not square (as you and the manual indicate thy should be ) , I think someone has been there before . I also acknowledge the bearing was rotating in the bore , no wonder as the nut was untight due to the broken tab of the nut locker wash

Many thanks again :pray:

Rui