[Vwdiesel] Preload on rear bearings

[Val Christian]

I subscribe to the "turn the nut finger tight, spin the wheel, and finger
tight again"  then turn incrementally tighter to get cotter in.

One rear bearing went on me once, with about 220Kmiles on it.  The other
rear was inspected and just fine.  Thats with 1.5 million diesel VW miles
across all my cars.

Oh, on aircraft we tend to not tighten the wheel bearings as much.
Several reasons.  It could include heat cycle issues.  The biggest
reason I've heard is that the hangar queens which spend months bouncing
in tiedowns tend to fret bearings.  They fret less when some preload is
removed.  Dunno where the truth is, though.  I never had a wheel bearing
go on an aircraft.

Val

ps: for wheel bearings, I take the bearing to the local bearing shop.
They generally have the sizes I need, and it's usually about 1/2 the
dealer cost.  Cars, farm equipment, whatever.  Since I run into the
city every day, it's an easy stop.