The Hub From Hell

[Guest ali2992]

I'm in the process of stripping down my donor car (Mazda MX5) and have got to the point where the only major item to get out is the engine/transmission. A couple of weeks ago we removed the rear hubs and shafts, originally the nearside hub pulled off very easily leaving the shaft in the diff, which also came out pretty smoothly. The farside shaft was pulled off the diff with the hub still attached. Not a problem we thought, now its off the car we can put it in a vice and hammer it out. How wrong we were...

 

First off we tried hammering.. quite gently using a block of wood on top of the shaft head to prevent damaging it.. nothing.

 

OK - soak it in wd40 overnight, come back and try again - nothing.

 

Hammer it a bit harder, so much so that the piece of wood used as a buffer shattered - nothing.

 

Put the nut back onto the head so it lies flat with the tip and hammer the nut - ended up disforming a couple of threads which will need a die putting on them, shaft still holding firm

 

At this point we decided that perhaps a hub puller would be best - so i put a loan shark ad on here for a hub puller and as a shining example of the sense of community spirit here got several offerings.

 

Richyb66 very kindly dropped off a hub puller yesterday afternoon and while he was here we had another go at getting this hub off the shaft. The hub puller was cranked up to quite an impressive tightness, but nothing - so hammering the edge of the hub while tightening the puller was tried, still nothing. Eventually the hub puller was tightened so much that it de threaded itself rather than pulling the hub off!! At this point, I was amazed, and also really embarrassed as richard had given up his time to lend someone a tool and within 10 minutes it was broken, but showing an increasingly brilliant selflessness not only refused compensation but also mentioned he had brought a copper hammer with him and rushed out to get it! At this point all niceness was forgotten and we beat the living *bleep* out of this shaft.

 

It looked like it had moved, at most half a centimeter but still.. so optimistic we fished out a blowtorch and heated it up before giving it another bashing. To give an example of how hard we were hitting it, the top of the shaft head was starting to bow. Still nothing.

 

After apologising profusedly to richard who was still refusing compensation, we pondered what to try next.

 

Today the shaft and hub were taken to a local mechanic who we know fairly well - he offered to give it a go and marched it straight over to a corner of the workshop and into a vice, pulling out a large hub puller. Possibly he thought that we hadnt really tried but that was quickly shown false as his hub puller also failed. Mumbling a bit, a second larger hub puller was tried, this too doing absolutely nothing after being cranked up to a very high pressure. At this point the big guns were pulled out - oxyacetalene torch - the hub was heated up to a ridiculous temperature, to the point of starting to glow and then hammering/hub pulling was resumed - STILL NOTHING!!

 

At this point there was 3 mechanics all crowding round trying to work out just what the hell was going on - apparently this was the worst they've ever seen. The hub was then moved over to a hydraulic press. In order to get a decent hold onto the hub, the protective shield (not sure whats its called) was chopped off, and a plate was put behind the hub, the hydraulic press was then slowly cranked up. After putting a very impressive amount of pressure onto it, the mechanics started to worry that the bearing would be pushed out the hub instead of the shaft. At this moment there was a tremendous bang that made everyone jump and parts to go bouncing off the bench from the sudden release and the mechanics were convinced the bearing had been shot out. It hadn't - what had happened was the shaft had dropped about an inch through the hub - AT LAST MOVEMENT!!

 

After this it came off pretty quickly, we greatly thanked the guys and asked how much they wanted, because this had taken an hour of 3 mechanics work when they could have been doing something else, but they refused - after insisting they said that if we really felt the need then just put a fiver in the dogs home charity collection box on the front desk.

 

So there we go - 2 weeks, a lot of hammering, banging, swearing, extreme kindness from people and the power of industrial machinery we finally got this shaft from hell of the hub. And somehow the Haynes Manual states something along the lines of "give the shaft a sharp tug or use a hub puller and it should come smoothly out" - pfffft. Yeah right.

 

Side note - it was pure corrosion that caused it. The splines were black, in comparison to the other one where it was bare metal and nicely greased. Surprising really as 69k miles is not a huge amount.

 

Thank you richyb66 and kind mechanic!!

[theduck]

Great result, and as always great help from fellow members! Makes you feel better when you realise it 'wasn't just you' either.

[BigLee]

Had a triumph Spitfire once with similar issue. Mate had a many many ton hydraulic puller that just bent the hub almost double and the woodruff key still wouldn't budge. Ended up grinding the hub off down to the woodruff key and splitting it. Then buying a new Hub. I think it is what is called an interference fit ........ or in hoody speak bloody stuck.......

[Tazzzzman1]

Yep I had exactly the same issue when stripping down my MX5...

Mr Bruce came to the rescue and after much swearing and cursing eventually seperated it when heated up until glowing and using a 200T pnuematic press.... Shaft was undamaged, just needed new bearings...

Further word of warning, I also had a devil of a job removing the front ball joints from the uprights, ended up using another local garage buddy to sort it (heat and press again)

[Snapperpaul]

I feel your pain

I did a drive shaft and front hub on my 53 plate Mondeo, the shaft came out but hub bearing would not.

My cousin is a Diesel fitter hub nuts he fits are torqued to 600nm, he had to cut the Mondeo bearing out after trying Oxy and needed 10 tonne on the press to get the new one in !!!

Other bits of the Mondy are made out of plastic cardboard and dried sparrows spit

[fry61]

Just shows that iron + oxygen = a lot more material i:e rust

[richyb66]

Great write up and you got there in the end which is the main thing.

[Guest ali2992]

thanks guys, glad to know it wasn't just me!

 

Yep I had exactly the same issue when stripping down my MX5...

Mr Bruce came to the rescue and after much swearing and cursing eventually seperated it when heated up until glowing and using a 200T pnuematic press.... Shaft was undamaged, just needed new bearings...

Further word of warning, I also had a devil of a job removing the front ball joints from the uprights, ended up using another local garage buddy to sort it (heat and press again)

 

Had a quick look at those recently, they too looked rather stuck, i'm going with the method of "if i don't think about it, it won't be a problem"

[Tazzzzman1]

thanks guys, glad to know it wasn't just me!

 

 

 

Had a quick look at those recently, they too looked rather stuck, i'm going with the method of "if i don't think about it, it won't be a problem"

 

Just buy a bigger hammer

[MarkBzero]

I remember using a CHARRV (recovery tank) and chains to pull off a damaged hub from a AS90 (artillery System) in the Army, 60 tonnes and 1200hp it didn't work in the end we had to cut it off bit by bit using oxy-acetylene torch. Hard graft but fun!

[Guest mower man]

Proper mechanic ing !!!!!!!!!

[Guest mcramsay]

Stainless can pick up when it's forced together, I get it a lot at work when trying to undo t41 3"

Whit worth stainless studs, once stainless picks up it is a nightmare. Sadly hitting the shaft with the hammer would have made things worse. I had the exact same problem on a bmw hub a few weeks back, I had to put ten tones on it and heat it up like mad, and it went bang! But it moved! You shouldn't heat a bearing up like that though! And def not with a naked flame, but I was changing the bearing anyway!

[richyb66]

Whitworth studs? Where do you work, a museum?

[Guest mcramsay]

Maintenance technician on a nuclear powerstation! All nuts and bolts are either whitworth or BSF. Very little metric where I work! Whoever invented whitworth and spanner sizes was a mental case!

[Guest TerryBarry]

Ahh Whitworth - proper nuts and bolts !!