Caterham front wheel bearings

One of the service jobs that comes up every 4 years on a Caterham is to repack the wheel bearings with grease. Somehow Caterham forgot to do it for me, so I did it myself. It's not a difficult job, but it needs some odd tools and a little bit of knowledge. Caterham felt so silly that they happily sent me the instructions and the parts that I would need.

The first thing you have to do is put the front of the car up on stands and remove the road wheel. The wheel nuts are 19mm hex and get done up to 74Nm.

The brake caliper comes off next.

The caliper bolt heads are E12 star drive.

They are not stretch bolts, so you are free to reuse them. They get done up to 90Nm ! New caliper bolts come with a dry patch of threadlock on the threads. If that has worn off apply blue threadlock.

As always, don't leave the caliper dangling on the hose. Support it on a precarious pile of tool boxes and bits of wood.

There's a castellated nut and a split pin holding the hub on. The split pin is 3/16 x 2".

The hub nut is a wildly inconvenient 1+5/16AF. If you're anything like me, then your imperial sockets stop going up in 16ths at 1+1/4 but you have a 3/4 Whitworth socket from a jumble sale which is very close to the right size. Laser Tools sell a 1+5/16 single hex impact socket for hub nuts like this.

The hub pulls off the stub axle. The inner bearing races are not secured in any way.

I know this grease must be good because it says "racing" on the tub and they've dyed it red. I believe the standard product for this job is Comma high performance bearing grease.

After you're put the bearings back together and put the hub back on the procedure is to spin the hub to distribute the grease, then 12FtLbs preload on the hub nut, then advance it to the next castellation. Provided that the bearing is neither tight nor sloppy, secure the hub not with a new split pin. I don't have the wherewithal to cut the end off the split pin, so I have folded it back on itself.

Richard "Silkolene RG2" B