RE: Noisy bearing?

["Grant Eckfeldt" <eckfeldtg@mail.snet.net>]

I just went through this with the 91. My wife took it to the tire shop and
had the snows put on and ever since then she complained that the snows were
real loud. Usually I don't get to drive it as I am still working on the 87
which she doesn't trust anymore, but when I did it was real loud at about 55
and got quieter by driving faster. I checked tire pressures, lug nut
torques, direction of rotation for the tires, and everything else I could
think of related to the tire change. So I took it to the shop over
Thanksgiving and we determined that it was the front left wheel bearing and
as we had run into difficulty with the engine overhaul for the 87 my
mechanic was able to squeeze the bearing job in.

The job involves disassembly of the front brake, tie rod end and axle from
the housing, of course this lead to more work as the pads were worn down and
the sensors were just hanging in there. There are 2 approaches to getting
the bearing pack out and in of the housing. One is to remove the strut and
use a press or as in my mechanics case is to use an Audi tool, which is a
set of turned spacers/plates driven by an impact wrench to drive the old
pack out and to drive the new bearing pack in. If you are doing it yourself
then the press is probably the way that you would go as I have heard that
the tool from Audi is $300+, but it does save you time.  It took about 1.5
hrs for my mechanic for the bearing part. Not having done this before I
could easily envision this taking me a full day if I were to attempt this
myself.

After the removal of the bearing you could see pitted areas in the bearing
race. I was surprised that there was no noise with the summer tires and by
changing to the winter tires would set this off. Coincidental or was the
weight unloading and then loading with the tire change the cause?

Grant Eckfeldt
'87 5KCSTQ
'91 200QW



-----Original Message-----
From:	owner-quattro@audifans.com [mailto:owner-quattro@audifans.com] On
Behalf Of Huw Powell
Sent:	Tuesday, December 07, 1999 10:01 AM
To:	David Nevin
Cc:	quattro@audifans.com
Subject:	Re: Noisy bearing?

David Nevi
> Also, I'm 90% sure it's the wheel bearing. But it's that 10% of doubt
> that it might be a noisy rear diff. that bothers me. Makes the noise at
> all speeds, is fairly loud, increases number of "woos" until it becomes
> a steady pitch at highway speed. CV joint boots are intact and appear to
> be in good condition.

Just to add to the confusion, I have a tire that is doing just that
right now.

--
Huw Powell

http://www.humanspeakers.com/audi/

82 Audi Coupe; 84 4kq; 85 Coupe GT; 73 F250

http://people.ne.mediaone.net/audi/thoughts.htm