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Slight play in both rear bearings - how to fix


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RTC3511 is the inner seal, in board to the vehicle that is.

I never bothered with the outer seals, removing them allows oil into the hubs that way to lubricate the bearings better.

Wouldn't that wash the grease away?

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It's an interesting quandary.

My 90's last rear axle was a Disco 1 unit, which had the external oil seal (which I left out) and no seal in the stub axle for the half-shaft. This allowed oil down the stub axle and into the hub. This was great for my bearings, but since the stub axle lands were worn I had no end of trouble with hub seals. In the end I got fed up with it and changed the axle for a later 300Tdi Disco unit, which is the same as used on 300Tdi 90s (ie. rear disc brake). This has seals in the stub axles (you can tell as there's a machined surface on the half-shaft for it to run on), which prevent the oil from ever reaching the hub. The half-shafts are also the 1-piece type, with the integral drive member, so there is no spline wear to worry about. The way I see it, as long as I re-grease the bearings every now and then this is the best setup.

Of course on a 110 your half-shafts are not 1-piece, even on the 300Tdi rear disc brake models. Earlier 110s (from 1987 to pre-300) had no seal in the stub axle, but an external seal in the hub (FRC8222) running on a seal track spacer (FRC8227). This setup allows oil to travel along the stub axle and lubricate the half-shaft to drive member splines, but doesn't allow it into the hubs. The common modification is to remove the outer hub seal (as I did above with the 90) and allow the oil all the way into the hub. Fine as long as the hub seals and their running surfaces are in good nick unlike mine were! Later 110s (300Tdi rear disc brake) had a seal in the stub axle (with the machine surface on as per 90 above) and a single inner seal in the hub. No outer seal. This means there is no supply of lubrication to the drive member splines other than that which is applied in assembly. Removing the seals in the stub axles allows oil to travel through both the drive member splines and the hub, so as long as your hub seals are up to scratch, this is fine too.

So to summarise, in my opinion, the best setup for an earlier 110 like yours, is with the outer hub seal in place allowing drive member lubrication but not bearing grease/oil mixture. With my own 110 I have a slight issue in that I have a 'bitsa' rear axle, with half of it pre-300Tdi and the other half 300Tdi. So I'll have to come up with something of a compromise. At the end of the day the later setup with stub axle oil seals isn't that bad, so long as you remember to grease your drive member splines and wheel bearings when servicing!

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