Axle bearing, tire or wheel?

99FiveOh

15 Year Member
May 20, 2006
2,051
20
99
J-Ville, FL
Here's the scoop. I bought this car, but it all together with brand new wheels/used tires. I'm getting a noise from the right rear area that sounds like a wah wah wah wah wah sound. It's kinda of slow in frequency and speeds up as my speed increases.

The car does not bounce or move up and down at low or high speeds. At first, the tires were chopped up good, but after a few burnouts and couple semi-long trips they have smoothed out nicely, no chopping at all.

I've also jacked the rear end up and let it idle in 2nd gear while I watched the tires. They are both spinning nice and true with no deformations in the tread anywhere.

To try and rule out the tires, I put my spare on, and while the noise wasn't anywhere near as noticeable, it was still present. I'm figuring axle bearings at this point because the wider 10" wheel puts a lot more stress on that bearing and thus makes it louder. I don't have an extra set of stock wheels/tires laying around or I'd try them to be certain, but in my way of thinking a spare tire doesn't have enough tread width to make any considerable noise and the noise was the same (same pitch, tone etc).

Anyone care to share your experience with bad axle bearings? The noise it made etc??

Oh, and the axle is straight, I had the car aligned and asked all those questions while it was on the rack and he showed me all the readings. And I'm pretty sure the noise is coming from the rear because I had my wife get in the back seat (down perverts! :nonono:) and she said she could def. hear it coming from the right rear.
 
rear axle bearing. Yep, had this problem on my 97GT.. never got it fixed. It requires a good amount work i heard to fix. You have to remove the rear axle.. pull crap... install new seals ...

I was told if you replace one side.. do the other also.. more $$ if you arent doing it yourself.

Good luck
 
Update: Turned out to be the axle itself. We pulled the axle out and it was marred up pretty good. Luckily, I was told about these "axle saver" bearings that move the bearings out a little bit, so they ride on a nice new patch of metal. Put that on and all it well, quiet as a mouse!

If anyone is going to do this job and you have ABS, take the ABS sensor out first. You'll be wondering why you can't get the axle in far enough to pull the C clip! lol
 
Update: Turned out to be the axle itself. We pulled the axle out and it was marred up pretty good. Luckily, I was told about these "axle saver" bearings that move the bearings out a little bit, so they ride on a nice new patch of metal. Put that on and all it well, quiet as a mouse!

If anyone is going to do this job and you have ABS, take the ABS sensor out first. You'll be wondering why you can't get the axle in far enough to pull the C clip! lol

It's called a redi-sleeve kit. It's actually the bearing that fails, and then tears up the axle. I had that happen on my fox body.

Kurt
 
It's called a redi-sleeve kit. It's actually the bearing that fails, and then tears up the axle. I had that happen on my fox body.

Kurt

There's also a bearing called an "axle saver", or also called a "bearing saver". It moves the bearing surface over to a hopefully undamaged part of the axle. It also includes the axle seal in the new bearing. Here's a link to the Fox 5.0 forum on the issue:

http://www.stangnet.com/mustang-forums/611749-rear-axel-berring-saver-reliablility.html#post5877712
 
Well, the bearing problem is solved, but now I have fluid leaking out like crazy! Solve one problem and create another. It's probably the crappy seals they put on those axle saver bearings. I'm not sure what to do at this point. Anyone have a passenger side axle laying around?