Hi all. I recently noticed a front o/s wheel hub centre cap missing.I assumed it had been stolen so fitted a replacement. A while after I noticed a humming noise coming from the same side front. On removing the wheel I saw that there was no hub nut and the drive shaft had gone inwards so that it was flush with the hub.

Can anyone please tell me :

a/ What would have caused this to happen

b/ If it will have damaged the gearbox

c/Should I just fit a new nut or also fit a new bearing/hub assembly

Thank you in advance for any replies

Graham

The hub bearing assembly should now be considered to have suffered damage as it is this hub nut tightened onto the drive shaft that clamps the bearing pack together. It gets clamped at the inside up against the outer section of the drive shaft and the outer by that nut being screwed up onto the end of the outer section of the drive shaft.

So why did it end up "coming off"? Well it has a built in tang that should stop it being able to unscrew, but these hub nuts are "one use only" items, and maybe someone has already had that nut off and just refitted it. Maybe a comment "of interest", I've removed a few of these nuts to replace struts and springs or just springs, and to replace bearing packs - on one car, I managed to end up with the factory fitted hub nut off without doing any damage to the locking tang - that was not very impressive!

Just curious - are these wheel bearings tapered rollers - or a type of deep row ball bearing?

Edited 12 May12 May by Warrior193
correction

I don't think that they are the old style taper bearings, if they were, I'd think that you could adjust them as in the past - but there again they might still be a taper type design, if not - I've got a couple of 2011 Audi A4/S4 wheel bearing assemblies waiting to get dumped, I suppose there is one way to answer that question - though I'm sure that these Gen2 bearing packs use balls and not rollers, but not in tapered "arrays", just assembled out of press fitted parts accurately manufactured and that will be why they MUST always be held clamped while supporting a load.

Also, I'd expect that there will be 2 rows of balls in these Gen2 bearing packs.

In my silly youth days I fitted tapered rollers on my rally car build, they used a spacer between the inner and outer races - so they weren't adjustable in the usual sense, adjustment required machining of the spacer.

Thanks very much to you both for the info. I thought I would strip it down as waiting for DPD to deliver new hub assembly inc. nut. I have got it down to the bare hub as far as I can see. Removed caliper and hung on spring out of the way,removed brake sensor,obviously no hub nut, stone shield off. Should the hub assembly pull out now. Again,thanks very much again for your advice. Graham

Cannot shift the bearing now so totally stumped as to what I am going to do.Any ideas will be welcome

I've not worked on a drive hub for a very long time, but yes, with the caliper and everything else off the hub, I would expect it to pull off over the driveshaft splines.

Take care with the CV joints.

Looks like a Gen2 bearing/hub in parts diagrams.

Needs special tooling, not a press.

Yup, if you plan to complete this job yourself, you will need to buy a suitable GEN2 bearing removal/fitting tool kit. Measure the diameter of the hub-bearing combo when you get it, the wheel bearings on my wife's 2015 VW Polo 1.2TSI 110PS so with 288mm front discs, was 72mm.

I just bought a cheap China made probably, kit for around £65 - that was back in August 2022.

Like this:- 72 mm Front Wheel Bearing puller Tool Kit For Audi A1 A2 VW Fabia Skoda Ibiza UK | eBay UK

or slightly cheaper:- 72 mm Front Wheel Bearing puller Tool Kit For Audi A1 A2 VW Fabia Skoda Ibiza UK | eBay UK

Edited 12 May12 May by rum4mo
added a second link