Excessive heat from wheels some help please

[tobeloy]

Hope someone can help solve this problem with my car, i had my wheel bearing replaced 2 weeks ago on the near side front on my escort and everything has been fine, I travelled to liverpool on wednesday last week and all was fine but then on friday I had a major wheel bearing failure on the offside wheel without warning...
There was a lot of smoke and all the gaiters were melted when i had eventually stopped the car and it had also melted my wheel trim with the excessive heat, and all this happened without warning.
Anyway since this has happened I have replaced the bearing that failed and also replaced the calipers on both wheels as there was a problem with them too and this seemed the logical thing to do as this may have caused the original problem..

Anyway since replacing these parts this problem is still there and there is too much heat coming from the wheels and if i continue to drive around i am going to wreck the bearings again, I am adequately qualified in mechanics but this has me baffled and after the process of elimination i am now left thinking could the fact that the car has abs be causing this higher wheel temperature or could there be a fault with the abs that may be causing this??? anyone out there with any suggestions your help is appreciated, as this is something i have not come across before

[markja]

could the brakes be sticking? check that after the brakes are released that the pedal doesn't lift up a bit more under spring pressure and put the brakes on slightly. this happened to a pal and we only found out when i pulled the pedal up whilst spinning the wheel, the brake came on slightly when the pedal is pulled (not pressed ) work that one out!

are the bearings over/under tightened?

are the wheels in alignment (cars not had a smack?or something in the suspension area is loose/missing) this might cause the drive shafts to be out of line & cause friction.

check each one seperately and carefully

don't forget excessive heat will kill the seals as well & you'll lose the grease making the expirery of the bearings even quicker!

[bobis]

hi, looking at your question i had a simmilar prob, however this was on my bike, i replaced 2 wheel bearings, a sprocket carrier and also changed the calliper before a friend suggested having the brake disc checked, sure enough the disc was warrped which caused the entire wheel and components to overheat, just a suggestion as it may be worth your while to have a look at the discs,good luck, john.

[Andy Boz]

As Bobis says, check discs for run-out with a dial gauge, (about �15 from Machine Mart).

Also how old is the car? I ask this because of the age of the flexy pipes, I have heard of tem breaking down, and the inner screen passes fluid to the caliper, but acts like a one way valve, not allowing pressure off the disc.

Wered the bearings correctly fitted, and torqued up to correct lb/fts?