Freak accident, bearings now "welded" to hub...

[Jasemgee]

The car is a 97 Landcruiser and the story goes that I was driving through the city (hate doing it in the Landcruiser, other drivers forget that it's a very heavy car) and collected a poor young lady's car when she tried to stop at a yellow light in front of me. I had to put both feet on the breaks to avoid ending up right on top of her. Luckily for her, it resulted in just the back of her car getting banged in and no-one was hurt, and the Landcruiser didn't even have a scratch, or so I thought...
Later on down the road, I noticed the car handling oddly, drifting to the right. This was accompanied by a scraping noise. I pulled over shortly after when flagged down by another driver and discovered I now had no breaks. After getting the car off the road and coming to a stop I got out and discovered, to my horror, that my front-driver's side wheel was now billowing out lots of white smoke...

The break disk had managed to get so hot from friction coming from the break pads that the wheel bearings had fused themselves to the hub. The mechanic now caring for the car thinks the bearings were not packed properly, but I'm thinking that it would have to be a huge coincidence that I happen to slam on the breaks with reasonable force to avoid an accident and they fail later on the same day.

Has anyone else experienced similar problems with their break caliper becoming stuck on after having to break hard in an emergancy?

[Hiro]

I struggle to believe that a perfectly functioning wheel bearing would die purely from the heat of one hard stop from ~60km/h (you mentioned city traffic), even in a 2.5 tonne Landcruiser. I'd be much more inclined to believe the mechanic's view that the grease wasn't packed properly into the bearing and it has run dry, which would cause it to get very hot very quickly

[Jasemgee]

Was from 70kph (really stupid speed limit for somewhere with lights in my opinion). More concerned about the caliper than the bearings, as that was where the heat was coming from.
When I stuck my head under the car to have a look at the break lines and see what else was damaged I did notice hot greese leaking out of the hub. Not too concerned about the leak causing any more of a problem since the entire wheel needs to be cut off and replaced, but it's really weird considering the breaks and shocks were replaced 3 months ago and everything was checked out and the car was running sweet.
I haven't even taken the thing bush bashing since its last service so it's really got me and the mechanic scratching our heads as to how the hell it happened.

[T_Money]

sounds more like a sticking caliper to me. explains the pulling to the right and the smoke from the pads.

very ahrd to belive a bearing would create enough heat to melt itself to the hub but i guess ti is possble.

[Steven]

If you jack up the car does the wheel spin freely by hand? If not, remove the tyre and
1) if floating calipers, then unbolt them to swing them out of the way
2) if fixed, then you might need to remove the pads for this exercise.

Either way once the caliper can no longer grip the disc, then try spinning the disc. If the caliper was at fault then they should now spin freely. You should also grab the top/bottom of the disc and check to see if there's any wobble in it.
If the disc still binds or has free play in it, then it could be your bearings.

A caliper can become seized very suddenly although it isn't very common. The above method will quickly enable you to determine where the fault lies.

[Jasemgee]

Haha. Once it got towed to the mechanics the wheel wouldn't spin at all apparently.
A sticking caliper is defiantly what happened, and the current theory is this:

- Breaks got slammed on.
- Caliper got knocked out of alignment from the force.
- Caliper caused friction on the disk, generating heat.
- A few hundred kms later enough heat was generated to get the grease boiling and bubbled out
- Without the grease, the bearings themselves started generating friction and melting
- Once the wheel had stopped moving, the bearings welded themselves to the hub.

Yeah, just a heads up: never underestimate the destructive power of a stuck caliper.

[Hiro]

Haha. Once it got towed to the mechanics the wheel wouldn't spin at all apparently.

A sticking caliper is defiantly what happened, and the current theory is this:

- Breaks got slammed on.

- Caliper got knocked out of alignment from the force.

- Caliper caused friction on the disk, generating heat.

- A few hundred kms later enough heat was generated to get the grease boiling and bubbled out

- Without the grease, the bearings themselves started generating friction and melting

- Once the wheel had stopped moving, the bearings welded themselves to the hub.

Yeah, just a heads up: never underestimate the destructive power of a stuck caliper.

A few hundred km later? Ok, now I can believe it. When you said earlier "later on down the road" I thought you were meaning like a couple of km later that day, which is why I was so incredulous that enough heat could get into the bearings to destroy them.

[alan.chalkley]

The same thing happened to me in my gtr torana many years ago.

I was traveling at an unspecified rate of knots down the freeway when the car pulled hard right and billowed white smoke out of the front right wheel.

I had to pull over and let it cool down before limping the rest of the way home at 40kph.

The next day i found that the bearing had welded itself to the stub axle and the disc hub was turning on a seized bearing.

I had to replace the stub axle , bearing and hub. The caliper , pads and disc were not damaged.

On the positive side i now drive at a specified rate of knots.