1981 240 wagon. When accelerating and turning left I get a rumbling/punding noise from the front right corner of my car. When not on the gas pedal and turning it does not happen. (I went out in a parking lot and did donuts under acceleration and not accelerating) I took it to a shop and they "tightened my wheel bearings" It doesn't do it as bad now but it still does it. The mechanic is not sure what it is but thinks perhaps a motor mount. Any other ideas.
Thanks

Steve

If anyone is wondering what the problem was, it was a broken motor mount.

Thanks for following up. I can envision the oil filter resting on the motor mount bracket and transmitting the engine vibration to the frame.
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Art Benstein near Baltimore

Might be time to get new bearings.

My daughter used the phrase "sounds like a motorcycle is following me" to describe the left front bearing failure in her 170K 83 244. Here's a close-up of the inner surface of the outer race of the inner bearing. Sorry about the size, but I'm attempting to preserve the detail.

I bet the inner race was even more torn up... I found out the hard way that the Haynes manual c. 1988 had a wrong wheel bearing torque specified - something like double what it should have been (maybe 45 foot-pounds?). Went thru 2 sets of bearings before I realized what the problem was!

Smitty,

"I bet the inner race was even more torn up."
I guess I could dremel through the carrier to look at it. Be happy to if anyone is curious.

I probably benefit sometimes by not reading the manual, because I've always adjusted wheel bearings by feel-- snug it, give the wheel a spin, snug again and back off about finger tight, with new long fiber grease in it. I never even suspected a Volvo might be different. By the way, that was an SKF bearing, I think the parent of volvo cars back when, or do I have that confused.

Thanks for your comments and story.
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Art Benstein near Baltimore

Art -

Yeah, if you have thc time and inclination I think it would be educational for Brickboarders to see a chewed up inner race. The cage is soft compared to the races, so a hacksaw will work easily if the Dremel is a longer reach for you.

I never gave rolling-element bearings much thought until I started working in the jet engine biz. One of the things I learned is that ball/roller bearings make progressively more noise at the early stages of wear, but then get *real* quiet sometime prior to caastrophic failure. The lesson here is that if a wheel bearing has been making noise for a while but then seems to quiet down, watch out!!! The inner race tends to get chewed up more since the load per inch of circumference is greater than the outer race's, even though the balls/rollers travel faster on the outer race and the tribologists tell us that metal-to-metal wear is a velocity dependent effect.

On behalf of all those who have benefitted from your contributions, I thank you for being generous with your time and photographic efforts. I add what I can from time to time, but your illustrated contributions are priceless. Many thanks!

We're getting some rain, so I'm inside tonight. Thanks for the hacksaw suggestion. Kept me from loading up a cutting wheel with grease.

Have not heard the word "tribology" since discovering it and a book with that title amidst an entire stack of material on that subject in the technical library at Wayne State U one Sunday afternoon while traveling in Detroit -- about 15 years ago. Most of the books I looked at were aimed at keeping tires in contact with the road. I was immersed for a while, working to improve my employer's mechanism for separating your electric bill from your check.

I enjoyed reading your post about the mode of bearing failure and the noise. That is a good thing to know when thinking of the consequences of a seized wheel bearing. Problem might have gotten far as it did because of the combination of aftermarket stereo and 19 year-old driver.

Looking at the inner race and noting "the tire's only flat on the bottom" I now understand the rhythm in the bearing's noise. In my original post I noted the car had 170k on it, implying the bearing did too. I realize now this bearing was part of an entire strut/spindle assy I replaced after a sliding car meets curb accident. So it came out of the pick and pull and I don't know its history at all. Don't miss links to a couple more pics at the bottom of the post.

Thanks for saying nice things. You shouldn't encourage me...

Art, I just got around to looking at your "racy" pictures. To quote Benny Hill, "It's not a pretty sight."

As I mentioned, I came to have a great deal of respect for rolling-element bearings once I was up close and personal with turbine engines. A wheel bearing does maybe 800-900 rpm at highway speeds. We had a 1200 hp engine with a compressor speed of 50,400 rpm (and the accessory gearbox ran at 72k!), and its bearings were only slightly larger than the wheel bearings we use on out bricks. Chances are, it cost a little more than 15 bucks!

Thanks for posting the pics. By the number of replies I think it was worth the effort!

Gary

That's a pretty thorough bearing failure!
No bluing though? I guess it wasn't about to seize, just had lots of loose particles (formerly known as "rollers"!) in it.
Nasty. Hope I never see another one!
Rob Bareiss, New London CT

"I guess it wasn't about to seize, just had lots of loose particles (formerly known as "rollers"!) in it."

Yes, Rob, it was nasty enough I thought I could hear it getting worse on a short diagnostic test drive. I thought I'd feel some heat or see some smoke, but it was cool, and the grease was still fairly thick. The rollers are still identifiable as such, perhaps, depending on the qualifying definition of fit, form and function.

"Nasty. Hope I never see another one!"

OK, then don't look at any reply I make in case Smitty wants to see the inner race (post above). (smile)

And thank you for looking at it in the first place!
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Art Benstein near Baltimore