Leyland Car Owners - Wheel bearing and tie rods

By Phil

It is a sad fact that in today's society, the issue of legal liabilitys raises its head at every turn. I have been doing Tech Tips for many years now, and I have only ever had positive feed-back from Club members and P owners, but the fact remains that I must protect myself from litigation by reminding you that I am not a licenced mechanic, and therefore if you chose to attempt to do some work on your car using any Tech Tips of mine or indeed any Club article as a guide, you do so entirely at your own risk! In other words "all care, but no responsibility taken"! Having said that, I can get on with telling you how recently I did an overhaul of the Green Targa's front end, in preparation for its yearly rego inspection. The front tyre were nearly three years old, and were still quite legal in tread depth, but the Targa had started to pull to the left a bit, so I knew that Targa's front end must be due for some new tie-bar rubbers, or at least a wheel alignment.
: I have my own checklist when it comes to the P76 front ends. The first item to be checked must always be the adjustments of the front hubs and the condition of the front wheel bearings. At the very least, the outer wheel bearings should be popped out for a quick visual inspection, and it takes only a few seconds to check that the outer cage and rollers rotate freely, while the inner hub is held stationary. Also check the outer cones for any pitting, or signs of chipping. Check also the colour of the grease in the hub. Are there traces of metal in the grease? If so - Panic!
: Seriously, if the bearing rotates smoothly and the grease is not discoloured, then all you need to do is adjust the tension of the hub nut. If the grease seems rather thin, or it is discoloured, then it is always better to dismantle the bearings from the hub and repack the bearing. Before you attempt to do this, make sure you have a couple of new hub grease seals at hand. As the grease seals are often damaged when the large, inner bearing is pressed out of the disc hub.
: My preferred method for adjusting the bearings is to tighten the hub not slowly while rotating the disc rotor by hand. Continue to tighten the hub nut until it stops the hub from rotating freely. Then give it a little extra pressure, just to make sure that the bearings and their cones are pressed fully home in their seats in the hub. Now back the hub nut off slightly, say about a quarter of a turn, until the rotor can be turned freely again, and as you turn it listen and feel for any signs of harshness or roughness. In some cases, withholder high mileage disc callipers, it may be necessary to knock the side pins on the callipers along a bit or so that the pads are slightly clear of the disk face, and doing this will allow the disc to rotate more freely.
: Now slowly retighten the hub nut a fraction of a turn at a time while turning the rotor by hand stopping frequently to grasp the top and bottom edges of the disc and give it a wobble to check the amount of free play. We don't want any free play, but also, we definitely don't want the hub nut to be so tight that the hub bearings are binding. We end up snapping strut stub axles, that way. Or else, the bearings grind themselves into paste. Equally undesirable! The correct amount of tension on the hub nut will allow the disc to rotate freely, without any free play when you do the grab-and-wobble test.
: Now refit the slotted lock washer to the axle, trying it in various positions until you get a little tag to align with the split-pin hole in the end of the stub axle. If it won't quite line up, carefully tighten the hub nut a fraction more - we're talking about an amount of on 1/16 of a turn here - and try again to fit the split pin through the axel. Now once again check that the disc rotor turns fairly freely, certainly without any nasty grinding noises, or stiffness!

: Now, refit a new split-pin to the axle to keep everything in its place. Do NOT use a bit of wire or second hand split-pin! Never! Now refit the grease cap to the rotor and once more spin the disc to ensure that it rotates freely.

: When the Rego man does the grab-and-wobble check on your P's front end, he is actually looking for wear in several areas.
: By grabbing the front wheel at the top and bottom, and pulling it in and out (the wobble test) he is checking for lower ball joint wear, strut top bush wear and/or wheel bearing play. By grabbing the wheel at the 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock positions and doing the wobble check, he is checking for wear in the steering rack, and/or tie rod ends, which are the little ball joints at the ends of the steering rack arms, and /or the radius rod bushes and/or wheel bearing play.

: Note: - that the wheel bearing play must be eliminated before any assessment of the condition of other front suspension and steering components can be made. Also note that on the P's what we call the tie bar is the rod, which braces the front control arm to the quarter chassis. The tie bar rubbers can be either Nolathane or natural rubber, and serve the function of maintaining each front strut leg at the correct angle to achieve the best result in road handling and long tyre life.
: You may on some occasion seen the P's front wheel moving about when the brakes were applied. This is the most obvious sign that the tie rod rubbers are either loose, damaged or worn. If the P has been fitted with wide wheels, and the tie rubbers are worn it is quite common for the types to scrape on the inner guards, either when the brakes are applied or when the vehicle is turning sharply. Worn tie rod rubbers allow excessive fore and aft movement of the strut lower end, and this places additional strain on the steering rack components, and the strut top bushes, and the control arm ball joint.
: Additionally the accuracy of the vehicles wheels alignment suffers, and there fore the tyre life-span is reduced. On all P's with worn or damaged tie rod rubbers the front wheels will be out of alignment to some degree, making the steering heavier, and increasing tyre wear rate.
: Replacement of the tie rod rubbers in not difficult or expensive, Set of Ford Radius Rod rubbers can be used, if the original Leyland items cannot be located easily. The P uses one male and one female rubber at the rear of each tie bar, where the bar passes through the quarter chassis. The male rubber is installed toward the front of the threaded section of the tie bar, with the large cupped or dome-shaped washer in front of it. Some P's have only a single nut in front of the washer, while others have a locknut in front of the large nut. The nut should be 1 1/8" AF.

: The female rubber is positioned at the rear of the tie bar, and is held in place by a large flat washer, rear nut and spit-pin. The Ford rubbers are packed as part number 28001a, for the male or front rubbers, two per pack, while the rear rubbers are packed as part number 28000b for the female or rear rubbers, two per pack. The cost of two packs, for four rubbers should be $20.00.
: If you want to fit Nolathane type rubbers the cost is about $50 for a full set.

: Before you attempt to remove your tie bars from your P, drive your P onto a set of ramps, and chock the rear wheels for safety. Clean around both tie bars with a wire brush, and take note of the measurements from the front face of the front nut, to the centre of the bolt which passes through the front end of each tie bar at the control arm. When the new rubbers are installed, this measurement must be used when locking the front and back nuts into position.

Leyland P76 Owners 2003

Technical problem

My own checklist when it comes to the P76 front ends