274 replies to this topic

[Todd Green]

Searched the forums and didn't see anything about this being common, but I had a front hub sheer this weekend (where the flange meets the bearings.)  The bearings were actually still good and spun freely on the spindle. I saw Frank's thread about his rear-hub issues, but was wondering if anyone else has had this happen?
 
The hub was from Mazdaspeed, stock other than me putting in ARP studs.  It had around 30 hours on it and one rain session/race.  Never had contact on it, only one major off, but plenty of running over curbs at MMP. Always run on Toyo RR's.
 
Anyway, check your hubs gents.  Having a wheel fly off your car and take out your brakes and only having limited steering is not too much fun.
 

[Todd Tagget]

OUCH!!!

[LarryKing]

Any warning?

[Bench Racer]

There was a production class car rear hub using Hoosier tires had a similar issue that was posted a while back.

[Todd Green]

Any warning?

Yep. Felt the same as bearings going bad. Only your warning window is much, much smaller. It went from a small vibration to failure in two laps (3 mile track). It definitely wasn't "Everything's fine, oh !@^! there went my wheel." In hindsight I should have just pulled it off the track, but given past experience, I thought I could limp it to the pits.

[LarryKing]

Had the spindle ever had an encounter with a hydraulic press?  Wait, don't answer that.

[ChrisA]

Was the vibration on par with tire pickup or more distinct?

[Todd Green]

Had the spindle ever had an encounter with a hydraulic press?  Wait, don't answer that.

Heh...not that I know of. I bought the car from someone who had it built by BSI and the camber curve seems pretty normal for stock spindles (i.e., wish it had more and you have to have it on the bump stops in turns to get mid 3's.)

I've probably had 4 hubs on that spindle and none of the others failed like this.

[Todd Green]

Was the vibration on par with tire pickup or more distinct?

More distinct. Higher frequency, uniform, and more "buzzy". Of course when it was getting ready to go it felt more like square wheels. Way worse than bad brake shudder, but a similar vibration sensation.

[flyingscotsman]

I replaced mine front and rear in the last 6 months due to reports of this happening. Plan to change them out regularly. Glad you are ok.

[Jim Drago]

Yep. Felt the same as bearings going bad. Only your warning window is much, much smaller. It went from a small vibration to failure in two laps (3 mile track). It definitely wasn't "Everything's fine, oh !@^! there went my wheel." In hindsight I should have just pulled it off the track, but given past experience, I thought I could limp it to the pits.

Todd
I saw another this weekend? Are you using long studs by any chance? We have seen issue on some where the long studs are harder to press in than what we remember. It looks like the hubs are breaking along the connect the dot line created from wheel studs? I wonder if we are inducing a log splitter effect with long studs? I know we even went to a slightly smaller doorman stud as I felt the ARP studs were way too hard to get into the NTN and SKF hubs we have been using. Just a thought?
Jim

[ChrisA]

Could be some induced stress from using a press. Unless they were all coming from the same source, I think it would be hard to make that judgement. I use the ARP studs in mine and they didn't seem terribly hard to seat. That said, I don't recall if I did them on the press or with the vise; it's been a while since I did them. My gripe with the ARP is they are too long, looks like I've got that James Bond tire shreading thing going. OE was too short. Are the Dorman higher strength than the OE or same just a little longer?

[steveracer]

There was one of these failures at Texas World Speedway this past weekend too.

[Bench Racer]

 It looks like the hubs are breaking along the connect the dot line created from wheel studs?

Did the this ^ hub break in the flat bolt flange or the round hub???  Did any break lead to the bolt holes??? Do you have the parts or pictures???

Saul, I understand this is a lot of questions. Details, details and more details are required.

 

All with Hoosier tires???

[FTodaro]

We need to start retaining the failed parts, Hubs. Maybe we can talk Bennett (saul) into doing some metal fatigue/ testing,

Hub failures with out warning is scary stuff and could end up getting someone hurt

 

Note to Racers, save your failed parts lets look into it further rather that guessing.

 

Mark are you interested in looking at some failed hubs??

[SaulSpeedwell]

I agree those breakages are so odd, it most likely is caused by something to do with the studs, the installation of the studs, or even the joint itself - meaning, I've had rotors not lay flat over the studs, and this can also cause weird nonuniform loading right around the studs when everything is torqued down.

 

More later ...

[Glenn Davis]

A driver had one go at Summit Point in T9 yesterday.  Result looked exactly like the picture above.  Running Toyo RR's.

[ChrisA]

Wheel off-set should also be included in the data collection. Since we are pushing the OE off-set of 40-38 to 30 & 25. This combo of tire grip and off-set may be too much for the hubs.

[Keith Novak]

Was the vibration at specific speeds or throughout the speed range?  I had a really violent vibration this last weekend on brand new tires that smoothed out above about 80mph.  I thought I must have lost some wheel weights but now I'm thinking I may have been about to lose a wheel.

[RP Performance]

Here are some photos of the hub that brole on one of our cars last weekend that Jim Drago mentioned

 

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