Wheel bearing noise after swapping wheels

[TorontoGuy]

I swapped a set of 2006 Ranger wheels onto my 91 Explorer yesterday and everything bolted up fine. After I checked the tire PSI and made sure all lugs were torqued. I took it for a drive and all was well until about 45mph. Then I got the "Whirring" of a wheel bearing and it seems to be coming from the front right. I checked the tire carefully and there's nothing that would cause it.

When I took off the original wheels the auto hubs came off with it, I wasn't expecting this so I wasn't sure which position it came off of. When re-installing I fitted the auto hub back on until there was some spring pressure pushing back on it and figured that tightening the lug nuts would compress the spring and tighten the auto hub as the wheel is tightened. This was similar on both sides.

Both wheels spin freely and easily with no odd noise when on the jack stands. The "whirring" is intensified if more weight is placed onto it such as when the suspension compresses over a large dip. If driving on a perfectly flat smooth road, it's almost non existent. You could almost feel the whirring in the front end and pedals when going over bumps. This noise was not noticed with the last tires however they were rather noisy winter tires so it may have been masked by the road noise of them, I'm not sure.

Does anybody have any ideas for me? Is there a proper way of re-fitting the auto hubs that I missed?

Thanks a lot everyone! I'd buy you all a tall frosty glass of your favorite beverage if I could.

 

[Anime]

You can check the position of the hub using the smaller hole that's between two of the lug holes on it, that will show up in the impression the hub leaves on the brake rotor and will let you position it the same way it came off, as long as you don't rotate the rotor or the hardware attached to the drive axle before re-installing.

There should be only a tiny bit of pressure on the hub when putting it back on, and only for the last 1/8" or so. Anything more and it's on wrong and you should rotate it and try all 5 possible positions until you get the one with the least resistance.

If you have smashed the auto hub on with the force of the lugs, and driven it, there's a chance you either damaged or broke the internal plastic parts of the hubs, but maybe you just wound up putting a lot of pressure on parts and it will be ok if you get it off ASAP and just re-position it. Be sure to check inside the hub for any plastic pieces, and look at the plastic piece on the front axle (the outermost part with three points and a spring retainer around the outside) to see if it's cracked or broken anywhere.

If not, you may be ok and just have to learn to take it easy on those auto hubs when putting them back on.

Of course, there might be other issues that simply changing the tires aggravated causing the noise, or one of the tires might simply be off balance. That can give you a pretty good whirring noise too, especially with an aggressive tread or funny wear pattern on certain types of pavement.

 

[TorontoGuy]

The auto hub went on just like you described, with spring pressure just on the last 1/8th inch or so. I'm also able to push the hub to the fully seated position easily, I confirmed this by taking off the wheel this morning and checking.

What I found was that the bearing rolls freely and quietly however the caliper is dragging slightly on about 1/8th of the rotor. The other 7/8th's the wheel rolls freely, smoothly and quietly. The rotors and pads are in near new shape and there's no shaking on braking so that leads me to believe the rotor isn't warped at all. The only conclusion I can come to is that the sliders need to be lubed as the caliper is sticking slightly. It's enough to stop the wheel if spun by hand.

How about your thoughts on that?

Thanks again!

 

[TorontoGuy]

Just a little update, I knocked the top and bottom sliders free a little bit and the wheel instantly turned better without the caliper grabbing the rotor anyqhere. When I've got some more free time I'd like to take out the sliders and clean the grooves and regrease them, they could probably use it.

I buttoned everything back up and the wheel keeps turning long after I spin it. No more sticky caliper.

I took it for a spin and the noise is about 85% gone. Much quieter but still noticeable on larger road dips where more weight is on the suspension. I can live with it until I get some new sliders and regrease them.

 

[Anime]

The caliper slides are supposed to be re-greased every so often, actually way more often than anyone really does on modern vehicles so they tend to get neglected and dry up, so you get calipers that don't re-position themselves correctly. This usually manifests itself as irregular brake pad wear more often than any noise (until the pads have worn into the rotor or to the wear indicator if it has one), but binding or sticking wouldn't be an unusual effect.

They make synthetic caliper slide grease, so be sure to use that. Regular grease will get pretty thin at brake caliper temps and could get onto other things, affecting brake operation.

 

[TorontoGuy]

Well, unfortunately on a longer drive I noticed that the whirring sound is still present above 45mph.

It's odd that the noise gets much more noticeable when more weight is loaded onto the wheels over a dip in the road. Noise doesn't change if I turn to the left or right.

It's also odd that now that I freed up the caliper slides a little bit the wheels spin so easily and without a sound no matter how fast I spin it by hand. I suppose the weight of the vehicle makes the bearings act a little different .

 

[Anime]

Jack up the wheel/tire and grab the bottom of the tire with both hands and pull hard, seeing if you can make it wobble. Grab the top and bottom of the tire and push/pull to make it wobble. That'll tell you if the wheel bearings are loose.

It's not unusual at all for the noise to get more intense due to the vehicle weight loading the suspension and wheel bearing or whatever else is causing it, whether it's an unbalanced wheel/tire, an odd treadwear pattern, or a loose wheel bearing, they will all be aggravated by a load.

Also note the lower ball joints can be shot, especially on higher mileage Explorers, you'll get a similar tire/wheel wobble as a loose wheel bearing, but if you look at the lower ball joint when the wheel/tire moves, the movement of the steering knuckle will be obvious.

 

[OneofMany]

The caliper sliders are pretty bad on these, Ford used them since the 70s if not longer. I lube them with anti seize, i dint know there was anything alse for them..?

 

[TorontoGuy]

Replaced my wheel bearings (as well as pads and rotors) and repacked them with high quality synthetic grease and the noise is still present.

I'm almost out of ideas of what it could be. I don't think it's the tires because the noise is consistent regardless of the road surface. The noise is exactly the same on freshly paved black top as well as on loose dirt/gravel roads.

Just to eliminate the tires as the culprit is there any harm in swapping on my original wheels onto the front end only? Just so I could take it for a spin and see if the noise is still there with my original wheels and tires up front. They are a different tire size so I wouldn't even think of engaging 4x4 as that would probably throw my transfer case for a loop, but I can't see any issues with having the slightly smaller wheels on the front just for a quick test drive?

If we can eliminate tires and wheel bearings, what else could be causing this bearing type noise as I drive down the road? It most definitely gets louder when I have a passenger so the more weight on that side of the truck definitely has an affect on something.

Cheers!

 

[Roadrunner777]

You can do that. You could swap front to back on the tires and see what happens. You will not like my advice. I suggest you go through the front end, spindles and front u-joints. It will take time and tools to do. Sometimes, when a problem is mysterious, it is easier just to go through the system, rather than stabbing at possibilities. But, that's just me. Good Luck!

 

[TorontoGuy]

I'm just puzzled as to what it could be. Since the only things spinning in the front end when 4x4 is not engaged is the wheel/tire and wheel bearings you'd think it would be related to one of those 2 things.

Can the auto hubs make a humming/whirring noise at any point? Under or over lubricated?

 

[firman]

check your radious arm bushings, had the same problem thought it was wheel brgs. on right front. both sides need to be the same.

 

[TorontoGuy]

Thanks for the suggestion but the radius arm bushings (and brackets) were changed last month. Old ones didn't look bad but now there's less slop in the front end and the wheel bearing type noise is exactly the same before and after changing the RAB's. I put in Moog thermoplastic bushings.

 

[TorontoGuy]

A new discovery - the humming/whirring noise is constant when there is a passenger in the passenger seat. It is noticeably louder when it's one of my heavier buddies.

If it's just me in the truck it'll only do it when the suspension is compressed at speed, but when there's a passenger it will hum driving straight down a smooth road.

Any ideas based on this? Like I mentioned above all signs point to wheel bearings but the noise is exactly the same before and after I replaced the wheel bearings (and rotors)

Cheers!

 

[TorontoGuy]

It was the front right wheel bearing! It wasn't worn or faulty, but the hub nut was too loose!

I pulled the wheel off and saw that the whole rotor had play. I dug deeper and found the I admittedly didn't tighten the hub nut down tight enough when I changed the rotors. The hub nut wasn't ever in danger of coming off thanks to the key and key slot, but a rookie mistake. I tightened it down enough so there wasn't any resistance while spinning the rotor, put the key back into the key slot and put it all back together.

No more bearing noise!