My experience with rear axle bearings is that they can make one he** of a
lot of frinding noise and still be useable. The needle bearings use the
axle shaft as the inner race and just a little wear causes a lot of
noise. The ball roller bearing will keep working. Don't worry about catching
it early, the axle shaft will need to be replaced.
If you think it is the axle bearing, grease it up and see if it goes away
for a while. If not, look at the U-joints (assuming the stub-axle bolts
are all tight). If one u-joint cap has lost lubricant, ie dried up, a
clicking noise can occur. It is very difficult to determine a
marginally bad u-joint while on the car. Take your best guess and renew
the u-joints, probably both at the same time since replacement requires
brake bleeding. Make sure to press plenty of grease into the cross as
it's not that easy to grease these guys once installed. Centrifugal
force will send it to the caps. Pack the caps as well so as to hold the
needles in place on installation.
Clark
>I have an 1979 spitfire that has some rearend noise that is directly
related
>to axle rotation.... When I am
>driving there is a definite "click" that speeds up with me, and stops
when I
>do. I believe the rear-end, and u-joints are ok, and have a suspicion
that
>the wheel bearings are beginning to fail.
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