I didn't measure. I just grab at 12 and 6 o' clock on the tire and try to move the assembly. The FSM says play should be 0 in. so if I can feel any movement I think something's up. That being said the driver's side definitely has a few thousandths. The next time I have the car in the air I'll try to get a dial indicator in it to measure.

I took a ~10 mile drive today to bed in the bearings. When I got back the passenger's side had a little bit of play that it didn't before. This time I removed the brake caliper and dust cap but put the rotor and wheel back on and gradually snugged up the axle nut until the play was gone. I didn't even bother measuring the force required to turn the hub. The final torque on the nut was less than 5 ft-lb. By comparison, the driver's side still had play with 22 ft-lb.

And you know it isn't the hub, correct?

Reason I ask is that one time I did have a bearing failure, it took the hub out with it. But the spindle was fine.

I suppose that's a possibility, but the hub rides on the bearings, right? I'd assume if the races went in place without issue the hubs are fine. I've read a couple cases where guys had new outer races simply drop into the hubs without resistance. That wasn't the case for me. The new bearings still had to be pressed into place even after heating the hubs and freezing the races.

Interesting. Fuck it. It's old.

You wanna see 'play', drive the Cosmo!

That's what I thought; when you think about it, that FSM procedure really doesn't isolate slop/play to just the bearings, though that would be the most likely source of play when tested like that. Any slop you have in the ball joints, or even LCA bushings (unlikely, but possible) would be felt as play by your muscle micrometers (anything > 0") if tested that way.

Could just be a slightly worn driver's side spindle, and DJ may be on to something with the hubs. Heating the hub & cooling the races should not be necessary; a new race (assuming correct part) should just press into the hub using a decent hydraulic press without any drama. I think the real question is how much play is too much play here?

The ball joint on the lower control arm is the only other possible source of play I can think of. I've tried to watch for movement as I shook the tire but a few thousandths is hard to notice. I'm going to test this by incrementally increasing the torque on the spindle nut. If the play is reduced or goes away it isn't the ball joint. This is how I know the passenger's side ball joints are okay.

In the long term I've got a set of S4 LCA's on the way I'm going to rebuild with new ball joints and delrin bushings.

I'm trying to find some used spindles with less mileage than my current ones to test this theory. I'm considering the PBM Knuckles for the future, though. Not because I need extra steering angle but because they have built-in bump steer and roll center correction for lowered vehicles. At $400 they're a steal compared to OEM.

I should clarify I didn't need to heat the hubs and freeze the bushings. I don't have easy access to a hydraulic press and I had already heated the hubs to remove the old outer bearing races. I froze the new outer races to make installation easier. The smaller outer bearing outer races dropped right into place in the hot hubs. The inner bearing outer races needed some extra force so I used the old races and tapped them in place with a plastic hammer.

Sooo... I'm an idiot. The bearings are fine. The spindles are fine. I pulled the driver's side wheel and before messing with the bearings again I decided to give the strut a good tug - "thunk." It turns out the play was in the suspension. The lower locking ring of the coilover was just loose enough to allow the strut body to move inside the threaded tube. I had checked this and I wasn't able to tighten/loosen the ring by hand so I'd assumed it was good. I further torqued the ring using the adjustment tool and a plastic hammer. Boom - no more play.

I decided to replace the bearing seals while I was in there anyway. When I did the bearings on Sunday I reused the old ones because I couldn't get the pre-load low enough with the new seals. This time I threw the pre-load instructions out the window and gradually tightened the spindle nut, with the brake rotor and wheel bolted on, until all play was gone.

Yay! Always something stupid.

:lol: :facepalm:

We've all been there. . whether we want to admit it or not :uhh:

See you in a few days! :cheers2:

At least it wasn't an improperly mounted wheel on the spindle. :leaving:

Decided to have some fun at a car show this weekend.



It put down 170 whp @ 7000 RPM and 140 ft-lb at 6500 RPM. I think there's lots of room for improvement with a finalized tune. My timing map is pretty conservative at the moment and it could probably be leaned out a little. It also didn't help that they didn't have the fan on. It started to get pretty hot on just the second run so the ECU started to pull timing.

More importantly, the car made the entire ~360 mile round trip with no issues whatsoever. It's not the most comfortable car I've ever driven but I've worked out a music solution at least. I consider this practice for the drive to DGRR on Wednesday.

That's great!