'32 front wheel bearing spacer

[Chris Marshall]

Thought I'd share my recent experience with wheel bearing spacers. My '32 roadster has original spindles with '40 hubs/drums. It has the requisite spacer on the spindle for the inner bearing. While at an event last fall an informal tech inspection indicated the right front wheel bearing was loose. Not fall off the car loose, but certainly looser than I had set it when repacking bearings. I jacked up the car on site and looked everything over. Bearings were smooth, no noises, no metal shavings, etc., so I put everything back together for the remainder of the weekend. Once back home there was a bit more play in the bearing than where I'd set it during the tech inspection. Odd. I pulled off the front hub. Bearings are good. Pulled off the spacer and here's what I found - note the heat discoloration:

[Chris Marshall]

The spacer had been spinning on the spindle and machining itself down. Hence the ever increasing looseness in the wheel. Luckily there doesn't appear to be any damage to the spindle. This appears to be one of the "budget" spacers that in reality is a valve seat of a size close to that needed to work properly. I happened to have a set of bearing spacers from Early V8 Shop that are actually machined to the correct tolerances. The valve seat is roughly .003 thousandths larger on both the ID and OD than the correct one from EV8. The valve seat actually has space to wobble when installed on the spindle. The correct spacer is a slip fit, but no wobble. Also note the OD of the valve guide was larger. In the case of these spacers the inner hub seal rides on the spacer. A tighter fit here is increasing the chances of causing the spacer to spin.

My plan going forward is to install the EV8 spacers on the spindles with bearing/sleeve locktite and put everything back together.

The moral of this story - buy quality parts from quality suppliers.

[cas3]

one of mine from the v8 shop was loose too. i dont think the spindles are all exactly the same, its some thing you have to pay attention to when assembling.

[Andy]

The 5W had the spacers also and were very old and also loose. I machined new ones that fit snug. The seal can spin the spacer as shown.

[Krylon32]

I've used the spacers from Boling Bros/MT brakes and had to heat them slightly to get them on. I have them on my deuce pu with 32/34 spindles and MT Lincoln brakes/drums and hubs and have about 3000 miles with no problems to date.

[John R]

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I got some spacers from MT/Bolling Bros. a couple of years ago. These were definitely not repurposed valve seats but (supposedly) made specifically for the spindle conversion. I have not installed them so have no on-road experience. Just going from memory, the ID of those new spacers is about .002 larger than the OD of the spindle shoulder on the Ford drawing. Since most of these shoulders have a bit of wear, the actual installed clearance turns out to be about .003 - .004. I thought that this was too much and am hesitant to use them. I don't recall the OD. I may have some others machined.