C4 rear wheel bearings: Recommendations?

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The Artist formerly known as Turbo84
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Clinging to my guns and religion in KCMO.
Just got the '69 put back together yesterday and was swapping out the tires for a track day tomorrow when I noticed a bit of excessive play in the left rear wheel (well, scratch the track day). I've heard for years that C4 wheel bearings aren't as durable as the older tapered bearings used in C3 suspensions, so I wasn't surprised that one of the bearing corners had just worn out. So, before I just blindly buy a Timken or SKF replacement unit, has anyone got any input or words of wisdom?

Thanks,
Mike
 
Do the C4 bearings have the same mounting configuration as the C3? Or you mean just press in new bearings as used on the C4? I that is the plan - maybe you could get the same bearings used in the C5 Racing hubs. They're supposed to be good for a season at 2gs. Maybe it is because of the carrier and not the bearing? Certainly worth a call to Van Steel I'd say.

Cheers - Jim
 

Thanks, Larry, I'll check it out. :thumbs:

For the last few years I've been kicking around trying to somehow integrate the old C3 bearing carrier with the stock C4 rear knuckle, as I was always a bit more confident in the reliability of the C3 rear bearings. (The easy way would be to just cut & weld the rear portion of a C3 TA to allow it to connect to the C4 linkage, but that would also require custom length halfshafts again.)
 
Do the C4 bearings have the same mounting configuration as the C3? Or you mean just press in new bearings as used on the C4? I that is the plan - maybe you could get the same bearings used in the C5 Racing hubs. They're supposed to be good for a season at 2gs. Maybe it is because of the carrier and not the bearing? Certainly worth a call to Van Steel I'd say.

Cheers - Jim

I've been curious what the difference is between C4 and C5 bearings, but I haven't been able to see a C5 bearing up close to see what the details are.

I'm under the the impression VS just focuses on C2 and C3 parts.
 
For the last few years I've been kicking around trying to somehow integrate the old C3 bearing carrier with the stock C4 rear knuckle, as I was always a bit more confident in the reliability of the C3 rear bearings. (The easy way would be to just cut & weld the rear portion of a C3 TA to allow it to connect to the C4 linkage, but that would also require custom length halfshafts again.)

WHOA Brother --- I can tell you that is a bucket of bolts to dig through...:banghead:

But at least I think I am winning! At least the C3 Differential to the C5 half shaft ant then the C5 uprights and bearings.

For what you are describing though - maybe you could avoid the weld shaft to shaft by building slip shafts - the "barrels" can be custom length and that would make it still "look Stock - sort of...
126953caa2874c0c0.jpg


Any number of shops online - and maybe locally could help you out with this one.

Cheers - Jim
 
For the last few years I've been kicking around trying to somehow integrate the old C3 bearing carrier with the stock C4 rear knuckle, as I was always a bit more confident in the reliability of the C3 rear bearings. (The easy way would be to just cut & weld the rear portion of a C3 TA to allow it to connect to the C4 linkage, but that would also require custom length halfshafts again.)

WHOA Brother --- I can tell you that is a bucket of bolts to dig through...:banghead:

But at least I think I am winning! At least the C3 Differential to the C5 half shaft ant then the C5 uprights and bearings.

For what you are describing though - maybe you could avoid the weld shaft to shaft by building slip shafts - the "barrels" can be custom length and that would make it still "look Stock - sort of...
126953caa2874c0c0.jpg


Any number of shops online - and maybe locally could help you out with this one.

Cheers - Jim

Slip shafts won't work with a C4 suspension.
 
Do the C4 bearings have the same mounting configuration as the C3? Or you mean just press in new bearings as used on the C4? I that is the plan - maybe you could get the same bearings used in the C5 Racing hubs. They're supposed to be good for a season at 2gs. Maybe it is because of the carrier and not the bearing? Certainly worth a call to Van Steel I'd say.

Cheers - Jim

I've been curious what the difference is between C4 and C5 bearings, but I haven't been able to see a C5 bearing up close to see what the details are.

I'm under the the impression VS just focuses on C2 and C3 parts.

I have both C-4 and C6 bearings. I will check the spacing on the 3 mounting bolts, the register size and depth, and the splines. At first glance, it appears at least the splines will be different. I got my C-4 bearings from Tom (Tom's Differentials), and they were listed as "heavy duty". I also got his treated outboard stub axles.

Added: Without disassembling the suspension, I made some VERY rough reasurements, and it appears that the bolt spacing on the C-4 hub is actually 1/4 inch wider than that of the C6. The C6 splined outer axle is approximately 1.5 inches in diameter, so you can check that against your C-4 axles.
 
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Picked up a Moog brand (made in USA) hub today. Tearing the knuckle assembly apart at the moment. I'm finding out what went together reasonably easy on the bench five years ago is a PITA with the body back on the frame. My hub carrier/caliper bracket is a custom piece I made back in about 2008 to mount the Wilwood calipers to the knuckle, and the disassembly is going slow. I might see if I can install some helicoils in the carrier so that I can get rid of the long thru-bolts and attending nuts (and use shorter bolts that I can install from the opposite direction), which should speed up the process next time. Here's an old picture of the hub carrier and the caliper adapter.

bearingholder.jpg

I initially tried to use the original '84 hub carrier, but I just couldn't place the calipers in the right orientation without using some very long oddly shaped brackets. I didn't trust the stiffness of that sort of arrangement so I was stuck making a new setup. So far it's worked well, although I could have done a couple things differently to make disassembly easier.
 
Got the left rear assembly torn apart and cleaned up. While meandering around town this afternoon trying to find a helicoil set to put in the bearing carrier I got to thinking about something. I've never been happy with the durability of C4 hubs (and apparently neither are most C4 guys who track their cars), while I've had very good luck with the rear bearing life in my original C3 suspension (even when it was me setting up the bearings :amused:). I got to thinking it might be possible to adapt a C3 bearing carrier to a C4 knuckle, and in my case, use the stock C3 halfshafts to retain the stock C3 trackwidth. I sold most of my spare C3 suspension stuff last year because I figured I didn't need it anymore (I have bad timing on stuff quite often), but I just might keep my eyes open for a C3 carrier and spindle set and start trying to mock-up something with my spare C4 knuckles.
 
Got the assembly back together yesterday. The rear brake rotors are going to need replacement next year. The pad compound I'm using is chewing the hell out of the rotor. The front rotors do seem to be faring better than the rears though. The fronts are Wilwood two piece rotors, while the rears are stock '84 style NAPA pieces. I'm curious if the Wilwood rotors are a tougher metal. I might think about putting Wilwood two piece stuff on the back when it's replacement time. The current rotor is 12.4# (the previous C3 rotor was about 16 1/2#, according to the weight reduction thread in the TECH section), and I think a two piece rotor setup would end up at about 10#, for about five pounds off the car. IIRC, I'll have to make a new caliper bracket, as I seem to recall that the C4 rotors are 11 1/2 inch in diameter, and the Wilwood rotors are 11 3/4 inch.
 
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