C1278 - OBD-II DTC - c1278-20

2024-10-26 04:24:53

The first caged bearings for axles were patented in the late 1700s, and the design that has carried forward to modern times is basically a set of steel balls or rollers that are housed within a ring-shaped housing called a race. Most ball bearings will have an inner race, which is grooved and holds the balls on the inside, and a grooved outer race on the outer circumference of the bearing. In a roller bearing, the race has slots that allow the rollers to spin against the axle on the inside and the wheel on the outside.

Wheel bearings have come a long way since the days when you had to repack them every several thousand miles, but they still do fail on occasion. Keep reading to learn how to identify a bad wheel bearing by the sounds it makes and what to do to avoid a wheel bearing to go bad.

Snow tires and chains are both designed to keep your vehicle safe on the road. Discover the differences and what would work best for you.

We prefer to clamp the two bearings halves together by setting them flush on a flat surface (an aluminum plate for instance) and carefully tightening them with a large hose clamp (left). We then use a dial caliper to measure the width of the bearing in several places and mark the widest portion with a Sharpie. We also mark the bearing on the side facing the rear so that all our sanding is accomplished on the forward-facing side of the bearing (right).

With a completely disassembled engine, the first step in this process is to ensure that the proper main bearings are used. This sounds simple, but in the case of a recent big-block Chevy, we used 0.010-under bearings for the first four main bearings, and due to a slightly undersized Number Five crank journal, this required a set of Federal-Mogul 0.011-inch-under bearings to set the clearance on Number Five. Once the proper main bearing halves were selected, only then can we test for endplay.

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Each engine family has slightly different specs for crank endplay, but the majority of engine families fall in 0.004-0.008-inch range. We’ve created a chart listing the popular V8 engines endplay clearances expressed as a range. This puts the ideal clearance in the exact middle of the range. So for an engine with a range of 0.004 to 0.008-inch, the ideal spec would be 0.006-inch. Note that late-model engines attempt to limit the maximum endplay, because excess crank movement can cause crank sensor errors.

Just like all other engine clearances, the thrust clearance is critical for proper engine performance. Even if sanding the thrust face is required, the task is not difficult or necessarily time consuming. The end result is a properly clearanced crankshaft, which ends up being its own reward.

Once you’ve done the road test and have an idea of where the sound is coming from, park your car, jack it up, and remove the tire. Don’t forget to use jack stands! With the tire off, rotate the bearing to see if there is undue resistance or if you can feel or hear clicks, grinding or other sounds coming from the bearing. It should be smooth and quiet. You can also try to wiggle it back and forth and there shouldn’t be any play in the bearing.

In automotive applications, the wheel bearings are usually sealed units that connect the wheel to the suspension of the vehicle. Your wheel studs will typically be part of the bearing and if it is a drive wheel, there can be a hollow in the middle of the bearing where a spindle is inserted from the axle shaft.

Howtotellwhichwheel bearing is badwhile driving

You may find that the car wanders on the road, your tires may wear unevenly, the friction heat from the failed bearing could damage other parts of the car, and the wheel could actually separate from your car.

Using a rubber mallet, tap the crank forward. This will align the two thrust bearing halves at the rear. Now torque the main cap bolts/studs with the oil pump, if so equipped. Now we can measure the thrust clearance by first installing a dial indicator on the crank nose using a magnetic base. We pry back on crank using a long screwdriver, then zero the dial indicator and then pry the crank lightly forward to read the total clearance.

Wheel bearingreplacement cost

Thrust clearance is important since there is a significant amount of forward movement from both automatic and manual transmissions. Automatics are often blamed for burnt thrust bearings due to converter ballooning (expansion of the converter), and this does occur, but there are other causes. One cause that receives very little attention is also one that can be easily avoided.

Testing thrust clearance requires bearings in at least the Number One and Five journals to properly support the crankshaft. With the main cap in place lightly tap the crank from behind to align the two bearing halves. This particular photo happens to be of a small-block (right). In the case of our big-block, the endplay came up shy of the minimum spec at barely 0.002-inch. This bearing will need to be sanded to add the necessary clearance, and get within the specs.

A recheck of our endplay now reveals a clearance of 0.0065-inch, which is almost dead center between the factory recommendations for our big-block.

There are a number of different abrasives that can be used. We used wet/dry 400 grit sandpaper lubed with Marvel Mystery oil. We sand for a minute or two in a figure-eight motion placing an even load by moving the position of the bearing in our hand. Note the arrow that points to the end to be sanded. We stop and measure every minute or so to check progress. In this case, we needed to remove roughly 0.004-inch of material to reach 0.006-inch of clearance.

Crankshaft endplay never seems to garner the same level of attention as say, rod and main clearance, but even with its somewhat limited attention, this is still a crucial area. If nothing else, if crank endplay is not checked and verified, the end result will be disassembling the entire engine to repair the damage, because too loose is just as bad as too tight. This makes crank endplay a spec that cannot be overlooked, and that alone should motivate all but the laziest of engine builders.

Frontwheel bearingnoise symptoms

How can i tell if my wheel bearing is badby looking

Some of these symptoms can also be a result of bad tires, or even a bad CV joint, but a bad bearing will sound worse when it is put under load, like when the car is turning, so use this method to test and see if it is your bearing that’s causing the noise:

Howtotellwhichwheel bearing is badin the front

Be sure to consult your owner’s manual, a repair guide, an AutoZoner at a store near you, or a licensed, professional mechanic for vehicle-specific repair information. Refer to the service manual for specific diagnostic, repair and tool information for your particular vehicle. Always chock your wheels prior to lifting a vehicle. Always disconnect the negative battery cable before servicing an electrical application on the vehicle to protect its electrical circuits in the event that a wire is accidentally pierced or grounded. Use caution when working with automotive batteries. Sulfuric acid is caustic and can burn clothing and skin or cause blindness. Always wear gloves and safety glasses and other personal protection equipment, and work in a well-ventilated area. Should electrolyte get on your body or clothing, neutralize it immediately with a solution of baking soda and water. Do not wear ties or loose clothing when working on your vehicle.

The bearing-thinning procedure starts by carefully placing a large stainless hose clamp around both thrust bearing halves with them sitting flat on a smooth surface. We use a 24-inch by 24-inch piece of scrap quarter-inch thick aluminum plate. We then measure the overall thickness of the thrust bearing end to end using a dial caliper. Most performance thrust bearings are now built with multiple small ramps that change the “height” of the thrust slightly so it’s important to measure in several areas to locate these ramps. We record the widest number for reference.

Start by listening for clicking, humming, or growling noises and feel for vibrations through the steering wheel. If you can pinpoint where the noises are coming from, the next step is to remove the wheel and do a physical inspection.

If thrust bearing wear or damage is an issue, as evidenced from inspecting the old bearing, Mahle-Clevite suggests this minor modification: Locate the rear portion of the main bearing half in the block (upper) and carefully file a 0.040-inch chamfer at the parting line. This slight chamfer will pull additional oil onto the loaded (rear) side of the thrust surface which will improve lubrication and reduce the thrust surface temperature.

Average life ofwheelbearings

If you catch a wheel bearing right when it starts to fail, you probably will have enough time to get to the shop or your home and do the diagnosis and repair. Be aware that driving at highway speeds will intensify any bearing issues and could lead it to fail faster, so be prudent with your route.

There’s a simple technique for installing and measuring thrust bearings. For testing we start by installing the front and rear bearings. For a Ford with the thrust in the center, you will need three bearings – the thrust and both end main bearings. With the bearings and crank in place, set the main cap in place and lightly set the thrust cap with perhaps 10-15 lb-ft of torque on the bolts.

How can i tell if my wheel bearing is badwhile

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Since the wheel bearing is the sole point of contact between the car and the wheel, it’s very important that it is functioning properly. A bad bearing will be noisy, could lead to heat damage of other components, and could seize up or cause the wheel to break off the car, leaving the driver stranded.

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Back in the days of horses and carriages, wheels were attached to the carriage by way of a wooden or metal stick axle that was fixed to the carriage, requiring the wheels to rotate on the axle. A major drawback of this setup was that there was a lot of friction between the wheel and the axle, and that friction made it harder to move the carriage, resulting in wasted energy. The other issue was that the friction would cause a lot of wear and tear on the axle and wheel where they joined, so you’d need to do constant maintenance on the joint.

There are a few things to listen and feel for when attempting to diagnose a bad wheel bearing. Some of the sounds that we associate with bad bearings can also be indicators of problems with other parts of the vehicle, but there are a few tricks to test whether the noise is a bearing issue. Here are a few sounds that can indicate a bad bearing:

Once the desired overall thrust thickness is achieved, sanding the bearing with a lighter 1,000-grit or 1,500-grit paper can make the surface smoother. With all sanding complete, it’s best to remove the stainless steel clamp and then thoroughly clean the bearing halves with alcohol and a lint-free paper towel. This is crucially important since that oily slurry which is left over after sanding is ridiculously abrasive and we don’t want that going through the bearings.

We will be using both a small- and big-block Chevy for the images in this story, but the process is the same for all engines even when the thrust is located in the center main bearing as with Fords and the GM LS. The thrust bearing incorporates both the journal bearing as well as fore-aft thrust surfaces. It is this clearance we will be addressing in this article.

Then we place a large piece of wet/dry 400-grit sandpaper on the aluminum plate and cover it with light machine oil like Marvel Mystery Oil. We mark the rearward facing side of the thrust bearing for reference and then only sand the opposite or forward or front-facing side. This maintains the original thickness on the rear side that will receive the forward thrust from the clutch or torque converter. Sanding in a figure-eight motion, we will sand for a minute or so and then check our measurements. This whole process may take ten to twenty minutes or more to complete.

A recheck of our endplay now reveals a clearance of 0.0065-inch, which is almost dead center between the factory recommendations for our big-block.

Your wheel bearings impact efficiency and keep the wheels attached to your car, so it’s important to use the best possible parts to complete any repair. Replacing your own wheel bearings can be an afternoon or evening job, depending on the make and model of your vehicle, so do a bit of research and don’t be afraid to tackle this important repair yourself.

We also know that sometimes you just don’t have the time to do the job yourself, so allow us to help you find a qualified professional mechanic through our Shop Referral Program.

Before checking endplay, you need to establish the bearing clearance on the mains. That will determine the proper thrust bearing to be used. It does no good to establish crankshaft endplay, and then have to swap out thrust bearings to achieve proper main clearance.

When it’s time to shop for a new wheel bearing, AutoZone has all the parts and tools you need to keep your car rolling, and we have locations in every state that you can find by using our Store Locator.

If you were lucky enough to take auto shop in high school, you might have been fortunate to be able to “rebuild” one of the class engines. In those courses, you merely disassembled the engine and then reversed the procedure. Hopefully for the first-timer, the engine started and ran happily and if so, you passed the test. However, for the true engine builder, assembly really is the easy part. It’s all the checking and clearancing that is essential before the engine is assembled, where all the real effort is located.Crankshaft endplay never seems to garner the same level of attention as say, rod and main clearance, but even with its somewhat limited attention, this is still a crucial area. If nothing else, if crank endplay is not checked and verified, the end result will be disassembling the entire engine to repair the damage, because too loose is just as bad as too tight. This makes crank endplay a spec that cannot be overlooked, and that alone should motivate all but the laziest of engine builders.We will be using both a small- and big-block Chevy for the images in this story, but the process is the same for all engines even when the thrust is located in the center main bearing as with Fords and the GM LS. The thrust bearing incorporates both the journal bearing as well as fore-aft thrust surfaces. It is this clearance we will be addressing in this article. Setting The StageWith a completely disassembled engine, the first step in this process is to ensure that the proper main bearings are used. This sounds simple, but in the case of a recent big-block Chevy, we used 0.010-under bearings for the first four main bearings, and due to a slightly undersized Number Five crank journal, this required a set of Federal-Mogul 0.011-inch-under bearings to set the clearance on Number Five. Once the proper main bearing halves were selected, only then can we test for endplay.Thrust clearance is important since there is a significant amount of forward movement from both automatic and manual transmissions. Automatics are often blamed for burnt thrust bearings due to converter ballooning (expansion of the converter), and this does occur, but there are other causes. One cause that receives very little attention is also one that can be easily avoided. Before checking endplay, you need to establish the bearing clearance on the mains. That will determine the proper thrust bearing to be used. It does no good to establish crankshaft endplay, and then have to swap out thrust bearings to achieve proper main clearance. Manual transmission cars with the older style three-finger Long or Borg & Beck clutch pressure plate designs, apply increasing pressure as the clutch pedal is pushed to the floor. This produces maximum forward thrust on the crankshaft while attempting to start the engine. Diaphragm pressure plates go “over center” at full release which applies only limited forward thrust. So the technique for a car equipped with a Long or Borg & Beck clutch is merely to start the engine in neutral. This eliminates potentially excessive wear on the thrust bearing.Maximum ThrustThere’s a simple technique for installing and measuring thrust bearings. For testing we start by installing the front and rear bearings. For a Ford with the thrust in the center, you will need three bearings – the thrust and both end main bearings. With the bearings and crank in place, set the main cap in place and lightly set the thrust cap with perhaps 10-15 lb-ft of torque on the bolts. Using a rubber mallet, tap the crank forward. This will align the two thrust bearing halves at the rear. Now torque the main cap bolts/studs with the oil pump, if so equipped. Now we can measure the thrust clearance by first installing a dial indicator on the crank nose using a magnetic base. We pry back on crank using a long screwdriver, then zero the dial indicator and then pry the crank lightly forward to read the total clearance.Each engine family has slightly different specs for crank endplay, but the majority of engine families fall in 0.004-0.008-inch range. We’ve created a chart listing the popular V8 engines endplay clearances expressed as a range. This puts the ideal clearance in the exact middle of the range. So for an engine with a range of 0.004 to 0.008-inch, the ideal spec would be 0.006-inch. Note that late-model engines attempt to limit the maximum endplay, because excess crank movement can cause crank sensor errors. Testing thrust clearance requires bearings in at least the Number One and Five journals to properly support the crankshaft. With the main cap in place lightly tap the crank from behind to align the two bearing halves. This particular photo happens to be of a small-block (right). In the case of our big-block, the endplay came up shy of the minimum spec at barely 0.002-inch. This bearing will need to be sanded to add the necessary clearance, and get within the specs. In the case of our big-block Chevy, with its new Number Five thrust bearing, we measured barely 0.002-inch of endplay. This will require us to thin the bearing, which is much easier than having the crankshaft flange milled. The most common way to trim the thrust bearing thickness is to sand them.Gaining ClearanceThe bearing-thinning procedure starts by carefully placing a large stainless hose clamp around both thrust bearing halves with them sitting flat on a smooth surface. We use a 24-inch by 24-inch piece of scrap quarter-inch thick aluminum plate. We then measure the overall thickness of the thrust bearing end to end using a dial caliper. Most performance thrust bearings are now built with multiple small ramps that change the “height” of the thrust slightly so it’s important to measure in several areas to locate these ramps. We record the widest number for reference. We prefer to clamp the two bearings halves together by setting them flush on a flat surface (an aluminum plate for instance) and carefully tightening them with a large hose clamp (left). We then use a dial caliper to measure the width of the bearing in several places and mark the widest portion with a Sharpie. We also mark the bearing on the side facing the rear so that all our sanding is accomplished on the forward-facing side of the bearing (right). Then we place a large piece of wet/dry 400-grit sandpaper on the aluminum plate and cover it with light machine oil like Marvel Mystery Oil. We mark the rearward facing side of the thrust bearing for reference and then only sand the opposite or forward or front-facing side. This maintains the original thickness on the rear side that will receive the forward thrust from the clutch or torque converter. Sanding in a figure-eight motion, we will sand for a minute or so and then check our measurements. This whole process may take ten to twenty minutes or more to complete.Once the desired overall thrust thickness is achieved, sanding the bearing with a lighter 1,000-grit or 1,500-grit paper can make the surface smoother. With all sanding complete, it’s best to remove the stainless steel clamp and then thoroughly clean the bearing halves with alcohol and a lint-free paper towel. This is crucially important since that oily slurry which is left over after sanding is ridiculously abrasive and we don’t want that going through the bearings. There are a number of different abrasives that can be used. We used wet/dry 400 grit sandpaper lubed with Marvel Mystery oil. We sand for a minute or two in a figure-eight motion placing an even load by moving the position of the bearing in our hand. Note the arrow that points to the end to be sanded. We stop and measure every minute or so to check progress. In this case, we needed to remove roughly 0.004-inch of material to reach 0.006-inch of clearance. After the bearing is clean, we reinstall the bearing and go through the endplay check another time. If you’ve done your math correctly, you should have an endplay clearance of somewhere near 0.006-inch as the number to shoot for.In some cases where high loads might cause increased thrust bearing wear, as with constant acceleration/deceleration with road racing or circle track applications, or with drag cars with manual transmissions and high clutch loads, Mahle-Clevite suggests a minor modification to the rear thrust bearing. The accompanying photo shows the location of a minor 0.040-inch chamfer which can be placed in the upper bearing half at the parting line on the side of the bearing closest to the thrust. If thrust bearing wear or damage is an issue, as evidenced from inspecting the old bearing, Mahle-Clevite suggests this minor modification: Locate the rear portion of the main bearing half in the block (upper) and carefully file a 0.040-inch chamfer at the parting line. This slight chamfer will pull additional oil onto the loaded (rear) side of the thrust surface which will improve lubrication and reduce the thrust surface temperature. Just like all other engine clearances, the thrust clearance is critical for proper engine performance. Even if sanding the thrust face is required, the task is not difficult or necessarily time consuming. The end result is a properly clearanced crankshaft, which ends up being its own reward. A recheck of our endplay now reveals a clearance of 0.0065-inch, which is almost dead center between the factory recommendations for our big-block.

Howlong will awheel bearinglast after it starts making noise

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Manual transmission cars with the older style three-finger Long or Borg & Beck clutch pressure plate designs, apply increasing pressure as the clutch pedal is pushed to the floor. This produces maximum forward thrust on the crankshaft while attempting to start the engine. Diaphragm pressure plates go “over center” at full release which applies only limited forward thrust. So the technique for a car equipped with a Long or Borg & Beck clutch is merely to start the engine in neutral. This eliminates potentially excessive wear on the thrust bearing.

After the bearing is clean, we reinstall the bearing and go through the endplay check another time. If you’ve done your math correctly, you should have an endplay clearance of somewhere near 0.006-inch as the number to shoot for.

Your safety should always come first. Learn the safest way to use wheel chocks and how to keep your stationary car from rolling.

In the case of our big-block Chevy, with its new Number Five thrust bearing, we measured barely 0.002-inch of endplay. This will require us to thin the bearing, which is much easier than having the crankshaft flange milled. The most common way to trim the thrust bearing thickness is to sand them.

In some cases where high loads might cause increased thrust bearing wear, as with constant acceleration/deceleration with road racing or circle track applications, or with drag cars with manual transmissions and high clutch loads, Mahle-Clevite suggests a minor modification to the rear thrust bearing. The accompanying photo shows the location of a minor 0.040-inch chamfer which can be placed in the upper bearing half at the parting line on the side of the bearing closest to the thrust.

bearing