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MG MG Y Type - YA Front Hub

Toward the back face of the hub, adjacent to the brake backplate, there is a spring wire ring running in a circumferential groove. One end of this wire fits into a hole drilled radially into the hub - see photo.
I guess its purpose is to locate something within the hub, a bearing seal possibly.
Can anyone say whether this wire should be removed before pulling the hub off the stub axle (difficult)
or left in place.
I need to pull the hub in order to replace the rubber seal between the kingpin & the lower swivel link - or is there a better way to do this? there should be!!
Any comments will be greatfully received.

Tony Knowles

A B Knowles

From memory you are OK to remove the hub without taking it out.

Use a 3-legged puller to pull the hub off.

Paul
Paul Barrow

Tony - you really need to see another YA and its owner for practical advice - it makes it so much easier. There should be some YAs near you - I have a YB which has a different arrangement or would be glad to drive over.
David Mullen

Tony

Can now confirm for you, it is a bearing keeper spring and yes you can pull the entire hub off without removing it.

Once you remove the brake mount backing plate, you can easily remove the lower trunnion, however COUNT the number of turns (including fractions of a turn at the end before the trunion falls off the king pin and when you re-assemble wind the trunion back on exactly the same number of turns otherwise your front wheel castor angle will be off resulting in poor handling and scrubbing out of tire tread.

Also, when removing the backing plate ONLY use a whitworth wrench/spanner and socket. If the nuts and bolts are seized on with rust, use a propane heat gun to loosen them up first. Retighten them to 40-70ft/lbs pf torque. The position of the short bolt only one is important.

When disassembling the front suspension I always compress the spring first using some long compression clamps that I made up using parts from Home Depot (aka B&Q). If I had my time over again on this I would make the pipes longer so that I can compress using the upper shock arms and the lower wishbones. Can supply a photo of the clamp if required. (Post back here if you need one.) This makes it much easier to remove the lower (and upper) trunion pins. Also, slacken the lower wishbone arm nuts and bolts before you begin to disassemble the lower trunion bolt. This will enable you to spread the arms and makes it much easier to replace the trunion, and its rubber boots and washers and to locate the tunnion pin on reassembly.

Finally, dont forget to retighten the nuts and bolts on the wishbone/lower suspension spring pan when you are done and before refitting the brake pads, rattle-can the nuts and bolts with black Rustoleum paint if you had to use heat to break off the rust lock up.

I have done this job on numerous MG YAs and YTs and a TD so good luck.

Paul
Paul Barrow

Tony,

I fail to see why you need to go to the lengths previously described just to replace the rubber seals on the lower king pin. As far as I'm aware, there is no need to remove backplate, hub assembly, brake lines etc. etc. to achieve this. I have just fitted a YB anti-roll bar to my YA which involved fitting a YB lower wishbone and its supporting arms. A much bigger job than you are contemplating and I did it without dismantling the whole front suspension.

Place a jack under the wishbone and jack it up to support the spring and pan. Slacken off the four nuts and bolts that go through from the supporting arms to the wishbone pan in order they can be spread open a little. Remove the locking splitpin and nut from the lower link and tap out the bolt. You should then be able to swing the whole kingpin assembly, hub and backplate upwards using the top link as a pivot. You'll need a block of wood to support the weight of this lot and can replace the rubbers.

Jack
Jack Murray

You also need to be careful that the new seals fit the king pin - the ones supplied these days are sometimes a bit smaller than original and don't always fit. Take off the old one and compare them first.
David Mullen

Tony,

just been rethinking your problem and there are different rubber seals on the botton link. If you need to renew the swivel pin seal then I fear you'll need to follow the advice given by Paul. My advice is only good enough for replacing the seal that fits to the bottom bolt.

Jack
Jack Murray

Tony,

Your part numbers for the King Pin seals are ACG4030 at www.moss-europe.co.uk (US or owners using www.mossmotors.com please note that they use p/n 281-388 and this is for a full set of 4 king pin seals and 8 trunion seals). Your part number for the Trunion seals at www.moss-europe.co.uk are 280-580.

Also, while you are ordering the seals it is worth replacing the thrust washer (AAA1390 at www.moss-europe.co.uk 324-510 at www.mossmotors.com) that sits against the trunion, and the seal supports (AAA1324 and 264-010 respectively).

The US seals I have bought have always fitted OK but I cannot say I have any personal experience with the Moss Europe ones, though I believe they are the same vendor. Perhaps David M was getting them from another vendor?

Anyway, the respective Moss pages are:
Europe - http://www.moss-europe.co.uk/Shop/ViewProducts.aspx?PlateIndexID=4515, and
US - http://www.mossmotors.com/Shop/ViewProducts.aspx?PlateIndexID=32799.

Happy fixing and let me know if you want a photo of my spring compressors - way better than what you buy in the motor shops!

Paul
Paul Barrow

I was thinking of the swivel link seals (not thrust wasasher seals)- these sometimes are supplied (at least to me!)a bit smaller than original - unless I was sent the wrong ones?
David Mullen

Do you recall where you ordered them from David and what Part number you ordered?

Paul
Paul Barrow

Paul, Dave, Jack
Many thanks for your comments - they are most helpful.
Just one other thing:- how tight should I expect the hub bearings to be? I have put a bit more force on the hub with the puller than I think reasonable possibly, but no sign of any movement. I don't want to risk damaging the bearings as they seem in good condition - no play and v. smooth in rotation - and if they are that tight, when I do get them out, how do I get them back in again? !!
Sorry to have to keep asking these things, but I've never had too much to do with hubs & bearings and the like.

Tony
Tony Knowles

Tony

The only stupid question is the one you dont ask so dont worry about asking - that is how I found out stuff.

The hub bearing may be on fairly tight so dont woory, you wont damage anything - its a pretty robust fixing: consider the abuse it has to put up with from the roads and use!!

If you have the puller torqued up pretty high (presumably you have already removed the main hub nut and split pin?) I would suggest a couple of things:
1) Using a soft faced mallet or plastic shot hammer, strike the outside rim of the hub and rotate it round so that you are hitting in different places between the hub puller legs. This will help shock loosen it while a co-worker continues to tighten the puller. You may need to hit it fairly hard and go round a fwe times.
2) Leave the hub puller on torqued upovernight and then repeat 1) above a couple more times.
3) Dont use a metal hammer on the hub though as that might split or crack the hub. No big deal if you do, I have a couple spare somewhere here in my shop though, just a darn inconvenience to you if you do.

Keep going and keep asking the questions.

Paul
Paul Barrow

On the subject of rubber seals for the front suspension, can anyone recommend a supplier whose seals have a reasonable life expectancy?

The ones I fitted a couple of years ago, obtained from a major supplier of Y parts (NOT Moss), are already showing signs of swelling and or perishing and may result in an MOT failure next time.

Given the work involved in changing them all, I'm hoping for longer life from the next set.

Thanks,

Bill.
W M (Bill) Bennett

Bill

All rubber will perish over time but like leather what I do to help stop it from drying out is after you grease up the suspension, wipe the excess around them on the outside. That said, there is a limited amount you can do to compensate for poor rubber. Its just another part of running an old car I guess, and what some folk call progress.

Paul
Paul Barrow

I got my swivel seals years from a well known parts supplier but they were too small. I eventually managed to find some old stock that fitted. The replacement type as has been said perish quite quickly (poor quality runbber)- after I have fitted them I paint them with tyre wall paint or put a smear of bathroom sealant over them - if they have cracks in the rubber the bathroom sealant fills the cracks in and stops them perishing further.You have to find some way of protecting them as replacing them is an unecessary pain.
David Mullen

I see from the News column that things are a bit quiet just now, so here are a few notes listing some of the pitfalls/problems I found stripping the front hubs (YA).
I needed to have the front shockers serviced and as the rubbers on the suspension weren't in too good a condition either, I decided to replace these while I waited for the shocks to be returned.

(Incidently, if anyone needs shocks refurbishing, both the co's in the Links section quote a considerable turn round time due to pressure of work)

To replace the lower kingpin sealing rubbers it is necessary to pull the hub from the stub axle & remove the brake backplate. Easier said than done! Despite Paul's suggestions (above)to pull the bearings, no joy, but a neighbour kindly let me use the hydraulic press at his work; and then I needed to use it again to get them back on - not enough thread protruding to wind them back with the retaining nuts. In contrast, the backplate-stub axle bolts were mere pussycats, no problems there. Paul's suggestion of counting the no. of turns when removing the swivel links from the kingpins is so simple - brilliant, but unfortunately relies on them having been put on correctly last time & mine weren't. More thoughts on this later, this note is long enough already. Jack's tip on keeping the lower wishbone bolts slack is good too.
I got all the replacement rubbers - lower wishbone fulcrum, kingpin & swivel link seals - from the Octagon Car Club. These all fit ok.
Finally, thanks for all the advice, gentlemen.
Tony K
Tony knowles

Some final (I hope) notes on getting the correct location of the swivel links on the kingpins.
On strip down I needed several more turns to remove the upper offside swivel than I did on the nearside and, by measuring each side, I found a difference of approx 1/4" from the top of the stubaxle boss securing the k'pin to a point on each of the swivels.
My manual states "--- screw on the swivel links complete with their rubber oil seals so that the bores of the bushes are exactly central with the groove in the kingpin ---" I found this difficult to judge, but by inserting the distance sleeve there is a total of some 4 to 5 turns of the swivel available before the sleeve fouls one or other of the threaded portions of the k'pin. Hence + or -2 turns from these limits gets it central relative to the groove.
By doing this there is now a difference between my measurements on the OS and NS of approx 1/16" and the same no of turns are needed to unscrew each of the swivels.
Tony
Tony Knowles

This thread was discussed between 02/05/2009 and 22/06/2009

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