Wheel bearings

[drjim]

So my Baur is in bits, all suspension removed so I can fit polybushes and bilstein shocks. I decided to do the rear wheel bearings while I was taking it apart. So I snipped off the grease seal, banged the bearings out, got the box with the new kit in and found that they were both the same size whereas I need 30x58x16 for the inner and 30x62x16 for the outer. The kit supplied appears to have 27x58x16 so no use at all. Will be emailing the seller.

So tomorrow I need to find a source of the right bearings. Looked at euro/gsf etc and they all have wrong sizes listed. Think I'll speak to man at the garage and see if he can order the bits in for me. I want to get the car back together tomorrow though.

Very frustrating!

[arshad76]

Oh Jim,

I've been trying to find the place where I got mine from in the end after going through a similar fiasco. It's not really the sellers fault since there are so many slight changes in sizes for this car, but my mechanic wasn't best pleased about my car taking up his ramp with the wrong sized bearing.

In the end he took one out and told me to go to a standard bearing place in Stretford. It was this place: http://www.bearingmart.co.uk/

There is also this site: http://simplybearings.co.uk/shop/?gclid ... wwodK70APw

Basically the rear bearings from my 323i at least were standard sizes and I was able to get a direct replacement just by taking the old ones to them and finding me an identical one based on the size. A damm site cheaper than BMW too at £4 each. See how you get on. I don't want to say I have some spares I bought at the same time somwhere in the house, but I do! I'll see what I can find - let us know how you get on.

[drjim]

Original bearings actually look OK but obviously the shaft seals are destroyed so I couldn't even try and reuse them.

That place in Stretford looks handy.

It's so frustrating - I have all the polybushes in, and struts assembled, if I hadn't decided to do the bearings I'd have it back together by tomorrow lunchtime.

[drjim]

Sent an email to the sales people at bearing mart, hopefully they'll reply in the morning and I will only lose an hour or so on the rebuild while I drive in to town and get the bits. Looking at their site they will have all the parts I need.

I now have a growing collection of wrong sized bits.

[arshad76]

Yeah hopefully they'll see you right. I actually remember taking the inner and outer bearings to them. One side they had in stock, the other they didn't, but they looked at my existing ones and said that they weren't too bad. Cleaned them up for me free of charge and packed them with new grease.

[drjim]

If I can get the shaft seals I can reuse the originals by the look of them.

One of those things you wish you'd never thought of doing!

[Jeroen]

Weird stuff! These are the bearing sizes we found:

4 cyl struts: 29x50.29x14.22 & 17x39.87x13.84 (mm)
6 cyl struts: 31.7x59.1x15.8 & 19x45.23x15.49 (mm)

However, there are several 320/6's out there that also have the small bearings

[LeeLee]

I got mine from ebay the larger ones

[drjim]

Local place came up with a crazy price, so I have rebuilt the front end and am now waiting for the correct size bearings to arrive. Have gone for W&N to make sure I get the right size, managed to get it wrong even on their site - clicked on bearings for 320, but forgetting there was a different 320 first. Mr Nesch emailed me to point out I need 320/6 bits.

Slight problem with being at work for next week or so, so track day at Cadwell on 5th May might be impossible.

[Eddie.]

Was this as the place in Stretford? How much did they want, if you don't mind me asking?