Bad wheel/hub bearings?

I've been having some strange problems lately, and I'm kinda thinking it might be a bad wheel/hub bearing. Here are the symptoms:

-front brakes seem to drag (just the drivers side) at random times...the wheel doesn't fully lock up, but it's enough to make it annoying to drive when it does.

-the steering is pretty messed up...the steering wheel will jerk pretty hard when I hit ruts/bumps. It's not bumpsteer, more of a wobbling when I hit bumps or ruts if that makes sense.

-it sounds like a bunch of marbles rolling around when I'm driving and when I'm coming to a stop. At first I blamed it on the center caps in the front wheels since they move around quite a bit, but it seems to be getting louder.

-I get a growl/hum when slowing down. It could just be my tires (bighorns), but after searching some on here, I found that this might be from the bearings going bad.

It's an 88 xj with roughly 4.5" of lift and 32's...Ball joints and axle u-joints were recently replaced, and I just got an alignment pretty recently. What do you guys think? Are these signs of a bad wheel bearing?

It sounds like a VERY bad wheel bearing, and I think it would be wise to look at it very soon indeed. LIke right away. Of course, first of all you should make sure that the wheels are on tight. This is no joke if you have alloy wheels, and if you did not personally supervise their mounting.

Assuming you're not about to lose a wheel, jack up one side of the front by the axle, and wiggle, turn, wobble and test. A bad wheel bearing will be pretty obvious if it's as bad as your post indicates.

If you had someone else do the ball joints and U-joints, there's a possibility that they damaged a wheel bearing taking it apart, or failed to torque the nut on the axle shaft enough putting it back together, but only you can judge what sort of mechanics you're dealing with.

In any case, though, you should look at this problem soon. If it's bad enough to cause brake drag, it's really really bad!

Matthew Currie said:

It sounds like a VERY bad wheel bearing, and I think it would be wise to look at it very soon indeed. LIke right away. Of course, first of all you should make sure that the wheels are on tight. This is no joke if you have alloy wheels, and if you did not personally supervise their mounting.

Assuming you're not about to lose a wheel, jack up one side of the front by the axle, and wiggle, turn, wobble and test. A bad wheel bearing will be pretty obvious if it's as bad as your post indicates.

If you had someone else do the ball joints and U-joints, there's a possibility that they damaged a wheel bearing taking it apart, or failed to torque the nut on the axle shaft enough putting it back together, but only you can judge what sort of mechanics you're dealing with.

In any case, though, you should look at this problem soon. If it's bad enough to cause brake drag, it's really really bad!

Click to expand...

X2 on the above. Well done.

Good Luck

Nick

Matthew Currie said:

It sounds like a VERY bad wheel bearing, and I think it would be wise to look at it very soon indeed. LIke right away. Of course, first of all you should make sure that the wheels are on tight. This is no joke if you have alloy wheels, and if you did not personally supervise their mounting.

Assuming you're not about to lose a wheel, jack up one side of the front by the axle, and wiggle, turn, wobble and test. A bad wheel bearing will be pretty obvious if it's as bad as your post indicates.

If you had someone else do the ball joints and U-joints, there's a possibility that they damaged a wheel bearing taking it apart, or failed to torque the nut on the axle shaft enough putting it back together, but only you can judge what sort of mechanics you're dealing with.

In any case, though, you should look at this problem soon. If it's bad enough to cause brake drag, it's really really bad!

Click to expand...

I did the ball joints and u-joints myself...When I took it in for the alignment (right after I did the ball joints) I told them to check my work and they said everything looked good. They seem like pretty good guys, but who knows if they actually checked everything. I did jack it up and wiggle the wheel back and forth and it didn't seem too wobbly, but I'll give it a good test tomorrow. I think it's pretty safe to say that I should replace the wheel bearings though.

Thanks for the replies guys, I appreciate it.

There should be zero wobble. And x3 what the other guys said

I have a similar problem, but don't have time to deal with it so I took it to a local shop. They claim they're having a problem finding the correct hub assembly. My XJ originally came with a vac disco, but I changed the whole axle assembly out for one that had Different gears, and LSd and shafts from an ABS Xj installed. Is there a difference between the ABS and non-ABS shafts in diameter for the spindle where the hub goes?

How much of a pain is it to change these out? How much time is involved? oh wait... I can search