Fitting Rear Wheel Bearing - Help!

[NikB]

So in the process of fitting longer studs to my rear hubs the nearside bearing decided to leave it's inner shell on the stub axle. I managed to get the shell off with some heat and a big hammer, and remove the other bearing remains from the hub.

The new bearing I have is a taper type - different to the one I took out. Now I have two problems -

1) My torque wrench doesn't work anto-clockwise (thread is reversed) is there any way around this or do I need a new torque wrench.
2) When the hub nut is tightened to the approximate correct torque, the hub will rotate, but is quite stiff, is this normal for a new bearing or is something wrong? It appears to be on the stub axle correctly as there is not much thread left for the hub nut to tighten on to.

Any ideas?

[Love Machine]

Yeah, I had rear taper bearings and I can't remember the catch exactly but they were a real pain to get off. I'd just use a puller and brute force. I think some of them had a habit of coming apart and leaving bits jammed on the shafts. I ended up getting very angry with mine. If the bearings come apart, get the inners off with a heat gun and then fit new bearings.

[cooperman]

Nik,
Don't worry too much about setting the absolutely correct torque figure.
If you have taper bearings, just tighten the nut until it's done up firmly and check that the hub rotates freely. If it's s bit stiff, just back it off until it rotates freely and fit the split pin. Re-check after about 500 miles and you'll probably find it will go up another flat or so. It's better to have it a bit slack than too tight. Make sure it's nice and clean before final assemble as well, a bit of grit will ruin the bearing quickly.
The taper roller rears are much better than the ball type and can be set to have exactly the right amount of freedom of rotation, unlike the ball bearing type which have been known to have some excess play in them from new and you then have to linish the spacer down to eliminate this to pass the MoT (if the tester is a fussy sod!).
I hope this helps,

Peter

[Dino42]

You have put the oil seal in the right way haven't you?
For taper bearings it goes the opposite way from the ball bearing sort.
If you get it wrong it will jam up the hub.

[NikB]

Excellent thanks Peter that's great advice. I spent ages trawling T'Internet and all my Mini mags to find that sort of info, with no luck.

Dino42 said:

You have put the oil seal in the right way haven't you?
For taper bearings it goes the opposite way from the ball bearing sort.
If you get it wrong it will jam up the hub.

Yes, this is quite misleading, the heinous manual is not very clear. Should it go with the flat side toward the bearing or the damper? I think it's toward the bearing....

[cooperman]

The inner seal should have the flat side towards the damper and then outer seal with the flat side facing outwards.
So far as I know the seals always go that way round and if they don't then my Cooper 'S' has had the seals in incorrectly for 11 years and 31 rallies with no problems. To hold the grease in, the retaining lip, which is opposite to the flat side must always face towards the area where the grease is. A look at the lip of the seal will show this.