Front axle collar problem

[meach]

So while troubleshooting noise in drive train I discovered a noise in front wheel, after pulling front wheel I discovered what I thought was a bad wheel bearing making noise each time wheel rotated. Turning bearing with finger could feel what felt like rolling over gravel, went ahead and ordered new seals and bearings, they came today, was in the process of removing bearings, removed left bearing and nothing wrong with it, pulled out collar and low and behold that's what is rubbing. See photos below. Axle and collar both seem perfectly straight, both bearings seem fine. Now mind you this is a new wheel & bearings installed by dealer about 4K mi ago after an accident. Its probably been rubbing ever since work was done, just been getting worse. In the pic you can see on the bad side of the collar where it is rubbing, and looking inside hub can see shinny area, notice collar only rubbing on one side. Only way to get collar out is to remove bearing.

 

Any Ideas what the problem is, wheel hub defect?. The dealer didn't charge me for a new collar or axle so I'm assuming used old one. Did charge me (or rather my insurance) $700 for new wheel, bearings, and seals.

 

Prob. going to take wheel by dealer that did work and see what they say. They did some other work replacing a few parts, I ended up having to go back and fix all their sloppy work, they even left some electronics under fairing disconnected. I wrote a nasty email to general manager of this local chain of MC dealers (Mountain Motorsports) here in Atlanta area. Local service manage offered to have another tech go over all the work they had done but I took a pass, had already fixed all their mistakes and didn't want them touching it again

 

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[cowpuc]

Wondering if the bearing spacer (collar) shown in the pic either has a tweek in it from the accident or is out of round in some way.. Seems like those spacers are not a precision fit on its OD/ID (like the bearing ID race to Axle is) - probably end to end though, depending on how you were hit in the accident, it would be possible to take a side hit on the front wheel or even a fork leg, push against the bearing and the spacer would could take the hit as impact is passed on to bearing on other side.. I would replace the spacer and, if the Axle showed any form of bend when rolled on a surface plate, wear marks or dimpling I would replace it too.. Also take a careful peek inside the wheel,, maybe have a high spot in the casting that needs to be cleaned up..

Maybe you could get the shop that did the work in the first place to reimburse for parts,, specially if they put a used axle into the front of a bike that had been involved in a front end collision.. That would be a no no around my old shop....

[garyS-NJ]

What was touching the axel and making the wear marks?. Could it be the wrong length spacer didn't make for proper beating clearance? Or maybe the pinch bolts were tightened before axel nut snuggled (idk what that would amount to but probably not good.).

[garyS-NJ]

Wheel turns on the bearing.. nothing turns on the axel (unless it's jammed up like a bad bearing or over compressed bearing

[Marcarl]

I would be looking at a bent axle, or possibly on a far out chance that the axle was not torqued to spec. As mentioned, when you torque the axle it squeezes the outer spacers, bearing inner races, and the collar together to form one supposedly solid shaft from side to side, leaving the wheel free to rotate on the bearings. Tolerances are quite tight, so a bend in the axle would through things out of line to cause some trouble. I can't see the collar bending, and I would think if that cast aluminum wheel were to pretend to bend, it would crack,,,, but stranger things have happened. The axle is steel and will bend,, so I would check that first. If you have a lathe, stick it in there and give it a spin.

[meach]

Thanks for ideas,

 

So pretty much everything mentioned thus far I had also considered. Something is causing collar to rub against inside of hub. Everything seems straight as far as the naked eye, if either axle or collar was bent I would the think the axle would bind passing thru which it doesn't. Roll test the axle seems perfect. If i have to at some point I can take axle & collar to brothers house about an 1 1/2 hour away and put on his lathe. I had taken out one bearing thinking they were bad, that's when I discovered collar had been rubbing, on the side I took out there appears to be an 1/8 inch or space between collar and hub, would think the other side of hub the same however I didn't pull out bearing, partly due to brake disk mount screws almost impossible to get out due to locktite and torqued in and the fact that now the bearings seemed fine so no reason to pull out bearing, I wanted to leave it as much as possible as dealer had left it. I guess its possible collar was enough out of round on one end to now hit the new hub, don't see how collar would ever be damaged due to being inside hub unless being way over torqued to the point of causing collar to bulge out enough now rub inside of hub. Not sure you could over torque that much by hand. Now it wouldn't surprise me that the shop would over torque it as poor as the other work was that they did. Rolling collar on a flat surface it appears to be perfectly round and straight but now scrapped as seen in photos.

 

Took the wheel, spacers, axle to different dealer (but now part of same chain, used to be independent). Older tech couldn't tell what was going on without pulling bearings and taking measurements which they agreed to do at no cost to me. So will see what they say.

I'll post back results for future references.

[meach]

So, it turns out one of the bearings had failed like I had thought (after 5K mi if they indeed put new ones in, I noticed later my old wheel had both bearings removed). I would have seen it had I gone ahead and taken off the other brake disc to get to bearing which I couldn't because 3 of the screws were in so tight and then with locktite I had broken two star bits and was going to buy a better one the next day. Dealer had to drill em out to get to bearing, he showed me how it had come apart enough to allow collar to shift and rub against hub. I went ahead and took parts home and finished removing old bearing which was a pain due to inner race falling apart from outer, got outer race out enough to use dremel to just cut the race in half. Got both new bearings & seals installed, wheel turns smooth on alxe. Got wheel back on bike and took it for a spin. Gonna go back and replace a couple disc mount screws and torque everything down later after some other routine maint. this winter.

 

On a side note, it turns out the hole thru hub is not the same on both sides, left side is about 35 mm and right side is about 30 mm, which is the side that failed.I checked my old rim and it was the same. (I always ask to keep old parts anytime I'm charged for new ones to make sure I'm getting new ones)