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MG parts spares and accessories are available for MG T Series (TA, MG TB, MG TC, MG TD, MG TF), Magnette, MGA, Twin cam, MGB, MGBGT, MGC, MGC GT, MG Midget, Sprite and other MG models from British car spares company LBCarCo.

MG TD TF 1500 - Tapered front wheel bearings Results?

If you have replaced the roller bearings on your T series car with tapered bearings what were the results? How long have you been running tapered bearings? Were you able to reinstall the spacer with the tapered bearings? Have you had any spindle damage with the tapered bearings? Others considering the swap might find your comments helpful. I know I would.

Regards

Tim
TD12524
TW Burchfield

I've done two TCs, I discarded the spacer, now I am reading that was not the thing to do. Both cars have had no issues, many trouble free miles.
Be well,
David
D. Sander

I recall that due to the TC's tall wheels and very small bearings that there were a lot of bearing failures. The inner bearing in a TD/TF is really huge, and I have seen several cars with original, high mileage R & M bearings that were perfect. I think the problem is when no perfectly shimmed spacer was used. The inner races would then move on the stub axle, wearing it. Just hypothetical thought however. Has anyone had ball bearing failures in a TD or TF? George
George Butz

Bearing type apart, I think that a fully tightened spacer actually provides a lot of stiffness to the axle assembly. Any change to bearings must have a fully torqued up spacer system.

David
D A Provan

I have been involved in lengthy discussions about tapered bearings on a site for pre war cars. David is spot on. The original TD/TF set up puts the spindle into tension which strengthens it. Tapered roller bearings must be set up with very slight play which means with no spacer the spindle is not in tension. Any slight bending of the spindle due road bumps can stress the smaller diameter section of it and result in stress fractures. It is essential for taper, roller bearings be fitted with a spacer and for end float to be set by either shortening or lengthening the spacer with shims. This provides the tension to the spindle. Another way of looking at it is without a spacer you are not fully tightening the nut and are relying on the split pin to stop it unscrewing! Considering the hefty size of the original bearings I am staying standard.

Jan T
J Targosz

My car has the original high quality R&M bearings. All I did was clean them and replace them as there was no discernable wear. I would be very wary of fitting some of the replacement bearings currently available as they seem incredibly cheap compared to equivalent bearings from top manufacturers.
Dave H
Dave Hill

Jan,
you probably already know that single side shield bearings make the drum/hub less messy.
As regards the nut. A few years ago I helped a friend with an imported TDC converting to wire wheels. The RH nut had a stripped thread and only the split pin was retaining the drum. As you can imagine we had to check every fastener on the car.
Ray TF 2884
Ray Lee

From another forum,
I put new bearings in mine, but used the ball bearings and spacers as original. Getting the right torque on the nut was a bit challenging as I had to add thin spacer washers. Quite a pain, as the hub had to be pulled a few times to ad or subtract the thin washers. They come in varying thicknesses. But, saying that, my hubs turn freely with zero play, so to me it was worth the effort. I would assume the spacers under torque ad to the lateral strength of the spindle. PJ
Paul Jennings

Paul, I wasn't aware that the TD original ball bearings had shims for adjustment. I don't think the WSM mentions them. My understanding is that you just torque the spindle nut to the proper torque adjusting for the cotter pin insertion. Here's the advice I see most often, "Run it up to at least 40 and then up to the next opening for the cotter pin." Did I miss something?

Thanks

Tim
TD12524
TW Burchfield

Hi Ray,

I was a teenager in the 1960's and would have used a similar bodge on my A30 so that I could take the girlfriend of the day out on a Saturday night. If you or your friend needs one I have a left hand die for the front spindle.

Jan
J Targosz

Who sells the shim washers for setting up the bearings?
John Quilter

With either bearing type, it's a really bad idea to run without the spacer. With tapered bearings, the distance between inner bearing races is critical to provide specified torque on the nut as well as end float for the bearings themselves. Too tight and you will overheat the bearing, which can result in snapping the spindle off the car (along with your wheel and brakes) and too loose increases hammering on the bearings, and well as other obvious issues with play at the wheels.
Steve Simmons

Hi John,

I think MG B items will do.
Part number ATB4240 - .003", 4241 - .005", 4242 - .010", 4243 - 020"

They are only pence to buy but best to check diameter before you order.

Jan T
J Targosz

I'm getting a bit puzzled (not unusual). Neither the WSM, nor the Service Parts List show any shims being used. We seem to accept the value of 40 to 70 ft-lbs as proper for the front axle hub nut with its split pin. To the best of my knowledge the only reason for using any shims in assembling the front axle is to get alignment of the cotter pin when the nut is torqued to 40-70 ft-lbs. Some folks polish a bit off of the nut to get there. I don't think that such shims have anything to do with 'setting up the bearings'. But, I'm just a layman. Bud
Bud Krueger

Bud, I agree. The mention of shims is applicable with tapered bearings because there is no spacer to hold the bearings at the proper clearance. But the roller bearings have the spacer that prevents you from tightening the bearings too tight. I think the fact that the factory did not supply a specific torque for something as critical as the spindle nut shows that they realized that the spacer would prevent over tightening of the bearings (i.e. tight and then another 1/4 turn to line up the cotter pin). There are no shims shown in any illustration of the front suspension of a TD or TF that I've seen.

Tim
TD12524
TW Burchfield

Shims are not used for roller type bearings. Just a spacer of the appropriate width. This width is the space between the inner face of the inner bearing races. Running clearance between bearing and race is built into the bearing design.

With tapered bearings, the spacer is a bit shorter than the space between bearing races. Shims are then placed between the spacer and the outer bearing until an end float of approximately 0.003" is achieved with the nut fully torqued. This ensures maximum strength of the assembly and minimum "slop" in the bearings. This is necessary because the bearings are not one pre-assembled unit like a roller type. You are setting the bearing to race clearance manually, and laterally rather than vertically.

Hope that makes sense.
Steve Simmons

I did the conversion to tapered roller bearings on my TC when I got new front hubs. TC hubs were not designed for replaceable bearing races when the standard (deep groove) ball bearings are used. Eventually the stock bearings no longer will stay pressed in, and special loctite can be tried, or new hubs. This is a typical TC hub problem.

I am pretty sure this wear problem will never occur again on my new front hubs, thanks to the tapered roller bearings. This is because tapered roller bearings allow for quite a bit of "axial" loading in addition to "radial" loading, while the stock deep groove ball bearings are mainly designed for radial loading and only allow for a minute amount of axial loading. I see the (above) typical TC hub damage as being caused by exceeding the axial load limits of the standard wheel bearings.

Strength is added to the stub axle when the inner bearing races and spindle spacer are in compression, and the stub axle is in tension. This is true for both standard or tapered bearings, and the nut should be tightened to 75-85 lbs torque, or 125 lbs if you have the Bob Grunau type modern steel spindles in place. Not sure what the torque numbers are for the nut on TD or TF, but things need to be good and tight for the spindle spacer to add strength.

As people have already said, you need a longer spindle spacer, or add shims, when converting to tapered bearings. As I recall the difference in spindle spacer length needed between the two bearing types is a lot, something like 1/8 inch, due to the offset of tapered bearings.
D mckellar

Steve and D mckellar, I had just the opposite issue the spacer on my TD was too long with the tapered bearings installed. I used the bearings mentioned in an article by Dave DuBois.

Steve could you tell me, if you used the stock spacer, what tapered bearings you used?

Thanks

Tim
TD12524
TW Burchfield

Tim how tight did you get the torque down on the bearings, 80 or 120 pounds sounds way too tightened for tapered bearings?
robert cohen

The torque is irrelevant. With the spacer and shims set properly, the end float on the bearing will be the same at 50 lbs/ft as it would be at 200. With the spacer omitted, the bearings will of course bind with any torque at all.

Tim, D McKellar is talking about TC hubs which are wire wheel and I assume your hubs, being TD, are disc wheel. So the spacers are probably quite different sizes. I'm not intimately familiar with TD hubs but I know the parts are not interchangeable.

I haven't done tapered bearings on a TD, as I don't own one, but there are several people selling kits including Bob G, Roger F and a couple others I can't think of at the moment. I seem to remember they do both TC and TD but could be mistaken. Hopefully a kit will come with a new distance spacer but if not, just machine yours down. Don't do it by hand because it needs to be perfectly straight!
Steve Simmons

Bud, you are correct. I think that is what Paul's post was referring to. George
George Butz

Bud, George is correct, I guess I didn't make my self clear enough, that' nothing unusual for me, Grin. I have 60 lbs torque on the nuts and the split pins drop right in without forcing them, due to the slight shimming. When pulling the nuts up to torque, I thought 60 lbs was plenty on those old threads, which in fact are in very good shape. I have nothing against tapered bearings, I just figured if the factory type bearings lasted for 60+ years, why change. PJ
Paul Jennings

The original specification would have included a predesignated preload for the ball bearing.
The spacer would be slightly smaller than the brake drum housing shoulder. This gave the necessary preload for the bearing then.
Ray TF 2884
Ray Lee

Paul, I agree, the original design with the ball bearings works just fine. But the fact that you have to source a wheel puller just to inspect your brakes is one reason to install tapered bearings. My drums were frozen in place and it's a wonder I didn't break one getting them off even with the puller.

Tim
TW Burchfield

What article by Dave DuBois about tapered TD bearings? Link? I would be interested in looking at it. Tapered roller bearings are usually or always installed with the tapered, or smaller (inner) sides of the bearings facing each other. In our case with the spindle spacer in between. All the tapered roller bearings I have ever seen have an offset, where the "big" side of the bearing sticks up a little, and the "smaller" side is offset inwards by 1/16" or so at the inner race (for the sizes we are talking about). So with the bearings where they should be when installed on the spindle, facing each other, a longer spacer would be needed to connect the inner races. As said, I have only done TC conversion, so I would be curious how a shorter spacer would be needed for a TD. Tim, maybe you got the bearings wrong ways around when checking spacer length? Or is the TD conversion so complex and variable that some people end up needing a shorter spacer and other's needing a longer one when using identical bearings? What is the TD answer, longer or shorter?
D mckellar

D mckellar, the tapered bearing will only go in one way if you get one or more backwards the drum will not fit on to the spindle very far. Contact Dave DuBois at SUFuelpumps at donobi.net for his article on tapered bearings.

Tim
TD1224
TW Burchfield

Yes Tim Burchfield, I just told you they only go one way, up above. Dave publishes all his articles on his site, and there is nothing there like you describe, and it is not anywhere else either. You start out asking about the conversion like you are interested in doing it, then after several responses you claim you have gotten as far as test fitting the spindle spacer, but the original spacer is too long to work with the tapered bearings, so you give up after buying $75 worth of cones and cups. When I asked if maybe you fitted them backwards for your test fit of the spacer, you say that actually you know how it all goes together and how everything works, and in fact are quite the expert on it all, but you fail to address the fact the spindle spacer needs to be longer, not shorter than the one you have from using the normal stock ball bearings. So if in fact there were some possible way you would end up with the original spacer being too long using the tapered bearings, why not just grind it down until it fits properly, or have it done by someone, as suggested? Your evolving story lacks consistency Tim Burchfield. It lacks credibility and an air of truthfulness. It leaves us all wondering what it is you want? I think the best question raised here by other's is why on earth would anyone want to convert to tapered roller bearings in a TD, where no problems of spindle cracking much exists?
D mckellar

D meckler, what's with the hostility? If I said something to set you off I'm very sorry. My OP was an attempt to find out what results people had if they had made the tapered bearing conversion. I made the conversion and found that the stock spacer would not fit. I only reverted to the original ball bearings because I had read a few posts that warned of damage to the spindle without the spacer. I wanted to know if others were running without the spacer and if they had any problems. I told you to contact Dave DuBois about his article on tapered bearings and I gave you his email address. I didn't say it was on his site. I really don't understand your aggressive post and your assertion that I am lying.

Tim
TD12524
TW Burchfield

Because someone has done something potentially dangerous for 20 years without an issue, that doesn't mean it's safe. I'd leave the spacer in place. Is it needed? Some may argue for or against. But do you want to be the one to find out for sure? ;)
Steve Simmons

Tim, Take it with a grain of salt! My TF was in a wreck in it's early life when it hit a guard rail destroying the right fender/wing, broke one lower control arm when, assuming, the wheel hit hard. Someone recklessly did a back yard patch job. The car was put in storage for 20 plus years and when I got the car many years later I completely tore it down and checked everything including the front spindles. The spindle on the damaged side was in perfect shape with no distortion to any part. I believe if the spacers were not in place the spindle would have been snapped off or bent. The right dumb iron was completely snapped off. Yes it even bent and twisted the chassis. A lot of you guys know what I went through to make this car right. The factory set up those spindles the way they did for a reason. I'm a believer. PJ
Paul Jennings

I converted to tapered rollers without spacers 10 years ago.
Regards, Tom
tm peterson

Tom, thanks. If you have had the drums off have you seen an appreciable wear on the bearings or spindle?

Regards

Tim
TD12524
TW Burchfield

The useful data here would be miles, not years!
Steve Simmons

Quite Steve, or maybe Mr Tom got ahold of some of the Grunau uprated spindles or equivalent. Bob would not recommend using without the spacer, but maybe Mr Tom is not telling us about his spindle particulars. Why is Tim so hot and bothered? Surely his antics have pushed other people to tell him things he must already know about his annoying ways. It does seem quite obvious that the spacer would be shorter after the conversion, not longer as Tim claimed. Care to rephrase on the length Tim? Maybe you meant to say the space between, and not the actual spacer, was longer so the spacer would not fit? SOund like what you should have said?
D Peltier

This thread was discussed between 05/02/2017 and 10/02/2017

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