Front Hub Ball Joint Taper

[Mr Nordic]

Front hub advice please.

Has anyone tried to replace the front hub on a Chimaera or Griff with a new replacement Sierra hub?

Due to one of the front wheel bearings on my car seizing up in motion (not a good experience...)I now required a new Sierra hub as the existing hub with the seized wheel bearing will not seperate even with 2 hours on a 10 ton press!

The new hub purchased is identical in every way to the exisiting one except the bottom ball joint tappered hole is a smaller size than the one on the car.

Exisiting hub bottom ball joint hole size 16.6mm, top hole size 14.1mm
New hub bottom ball joint hole size 15.6mm, top hole size 13.1mm

Were these bottom ball joint tapered hole resized by TVR to accomadate the bottom ball joint which is larger than the Sierra size?

Research indicates (thanks RP)that the taper is 1.5 inch per foot (3.6 degrees) which is the standard taper for a vehicle ball joint.

I have arranged for the tapers to be recut to accomadate the bottom ball joint.

Any advice on this mystery would be a great help.

[Barreti]

I bought some sierra front hubs so as to avoid having to mess around with wheel bearings after diagnosing a knackered one.
Only to find after buying them the taper for the ball joint was smaller than the original as you've found.

After recovering from feeling a right pillock for not checking this, I had them recut to match the shiny new ball joints I'd also got to replace the old tired ones.

The guy who did them bought the cutter to do the job. Well, actually I did according to the bill though he never gave it to me. I'll tell you it wasn't cheap - I have £40 in mind but whether that was per side or for both I can't remember now, just that I wish I'd just taken them back instead of messing around.

The company is in Leicester though so probably not a lot of use to you.

Good luck with the job.

Edited by Barreti on Wednesday 26th May 22:45

[spend]

Hmmmm might be easier to change bottom wishbone/BJ's and get out of this 'nearly a LADA' bottom balljoint trap?

[Barreti]

I agree with you Dave, and if I hadn't already had the balljoints for a while, or known the cost of making the taper in the hub bigger, I would have done that for sure.

Do you know which Sierra the hub on our cars is off and what the Sierra hubs I got from Spire would have been?

Its worth highlighting this if we can so nobody else makes the same mistake

Edited by Barreti on Thursday 27th May 09:46

[Barkychoc]

PM Gerald-TVR he's broken a couple of S's recently - correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the front suspension basic arrangement the same?

Saab top balljoint and Lada bottom with sierra hub?

Chris

[Mr Nordic]

Thanks guys, have bought another TVR pair, the cheap options are not all they appear....

[SteveGRF]

I had to do this adaption to ford hub carriers when I built a kit car once, its not to difficult - you have to use the taper reamer & gradually enlarge the taper hole (whilst continual test fitting), until the taper of the ball joint matches the depth etc.