Refer to any decent grammar school chemistry text. Periodic table of the elements is your friend.

It IS an 'electrical connection".

The hubs are an alloy that is predominantly Iron.

The suspension upright, IIRC, is an Aluminium-Magnesium-Silicon-Manganese Alloy. That's listed right on the casting in raised letters if it was not already obvious that it is predominantly aluminium.

Water and wintertime road salt can take up residence in the annular gap between upright and hub.

The assembly then wants to play at being a battery. Hence the binding corrosion reported by many and their need for a press.
.
The teflon tape and dielectric grease are to both prevent entry of that electrolyte in the first instance and reduce the surface area and ability to conduct of whatever does get at it.

Corrosion damage or any other surface defects - scratches, even - are not kind to the strength and longevity of light-metal alloys. The rest of it has been cleaned and surface treated as well.

"Never-Seize" I use on the sparking plugs. .

 

Just curious, but what size Torx does it take? I don't have any bits above T30 and will have to pick up one.

 

If I'm not mistaken, it was a T35. I can check when I get home if someone doesn't get back to you first, I just went out and bought a decent Torx head kit for $20 or so.

 

It looks quite a bit bigger than a T35 to me but I could be wrong. I glanced up in there yesterday at it, but haven't grabbed tools to take it apart since I'm still waiting for the part.

 

I have the 04 XJR and front wheel bearings are a bolt in affair. The entire wheel hub assembly just bolts in. I did them at around 105k miles. The most difficult part if you can call it that, was drilling out the rivets for the splash guards. Rather than buy the large rivets and new rivet tool, I just replaced them with socket head cap screws and nuts. Got them at partsgeek.com. Beck Arnley Part Number: 17920-05217516 Timken Part Number: 17920-07094861 No need to remove the upright, just caliper, rotor, splash guard and remove bolts. If I remember, you may need a large Star bit - don't remember size. I just buy them as I need them for the car.

 

Wrong again but do what you want.

Bulb grease is NOT sold to prevent two dissimilar metals from sticking together. It is a silicone based grease that is made to keep water out of electrical connections.

Of course it's silly to actually look at what the people who actually make the stuff say??

Specialty Lubricants : Permatex® Bulb Grease
.
.
.

 

Let's keep it light and friendly guys.

Silicone paste is a versatile and useful substance, and "Bulb Grease" is just one of many, many applications for which it is packaged, marketed and sold. Others include "Dielectric Grease," "Tune-up Grease," "Spark Plug Boot Grease," "O-Ring Lubricant," "Disc Brake Grease," "Brake Caliper Guide Pin Grease," “Battery Terminal Protectant,” "Weatherstrip Lube," "Plastic & Rubber Part Assembly Lube," and “Personal Lubricant" (a google search turns up Astroglide as one brand). Permatex, Dow, 3M and others package the same raw silicone paste in many ways and market the various packages for different applications.

One of statements in the 3M Silicone Paste datasheet at the link below is: “Use to seal out contaminates, moisture, or elements that lead to oxidation and corrosion.”

http://tinyurl.com/3M-Silicone-Paste


As Bill (Thermite) has accurately stated, galvanic corrosion is an electrical process between two dissimilar metals in the presence of an electrolyte (a substance that ionizes when dissolved in water, such as many common minerals and salts). Preventing water ingress is the chief requirement to prevent galvanic corrosion, so despite the fact that I would personally tend to reach for copper grease or nickel anti-sieze compound in those sorts of circumstances, I can’t argue with Bill that silicone paste is a suitable preventative. And since it can be used on disc brake caliper guide pins, it should survive hub operating temperatures with no problem.

I invite Bill to give us an update down the road to let us know how the silicone grease is performing.

Cheers,

Don

 

06 x350 lwb; quiet as a mouse.

On a separate the noise you describe happened on my wife's care (07 MB E350) when her tires started wearing down to the rubber wear indicators. As soon as the tires were replaced the car was quiet as can be...I only offer that since the problem sounds similar and you mentioned tires/wheels in your original post. Good luck

 

I had the same noise with the tires I removed. I didn't change them out for the noise, but hoped it would help. The old tires were dry rotting.

 

T50 or T55 IIRC. I had larger. And smaller. Male and female. Socket drive and Ell-wrench. Bit of a tool packrat here, and for 50-60 years or so.

.and yet ..I ended up adding THREE new sets to my arsenal.

Part of the problem is that it is blocked as to length. Really hard to find a male Torx bit with a socket drive that is short enough overall to get in and not be at an angle. Ended up using an Ell wrench and a brass hammer this go.

Could make or modify a shorter overall Torx for next time, but it will be easier to replace the two fasteners each side that are Torx with two more of their counterparts that have the low profile hex heads.

There is 'enough' clearance for hex, even at the tightest of the four locations.

 

Why did you remove the splash guards at all? They are not in the way of anything much - not even line-of-sight.

Mine were DIRTY. I spent a bit of quality time cleaning and polishing them. But .. right in place. Not because it matters to their function.

The ugliness of crud and 'possibility of' corrosion (they weren't) just .. offended my sense of ...wot? "Jaguarishness"?

 

"sold"? Let's aside that part. Bottomless well.

With an annular gap of somewhere around ten thousandths of an inch clearance, (could have miked it, didn't think to do so) there wasn't much risk of them 'sticking together'.

So long as ....they were clean and dry.

What those who have had to use presses for take-apart were dealing with was the expanded 'salts'. The byproducts of corrosion - that wedged them together.

Stop right there. "Keep water out of.. " most anything. Really.

Not JUST electrical, but that also.

Made it less likely to tear the Teflon tape, as well.

And.. I figured it would last longer in that environment than Beeswax, asphalt, AstroGlide*, K-Y Jelly, Coconut oil, Avocado oil, ...or rendered Long Island Duckling fat. All of which, and many, many more, I have handy as well.

Don't ASK why..



Anyway ... I'm not SELLING the stuff. ANY of the above.

Just reporting on what I did.

(* .which is really, really NOT suitable for keeping ANYTHING "out" Thankfully..DAMHIKT)

 

I am certain to fail at that.

I have other vehicles, and take my winters in Asia anyway. This Jaguar will not see use on salted roads, and apparently HAD NOT under previous ownership, hence my hubs coming out easily as soon as the last fastener was loosened.

So why bother? "extreme caution". Preventive flavour.

Tape and grease are cheap. The alloy used for the upright is a tad fussy. Fragile, even.

It doesn't tolerate surface damage well - corrosion OR scratch and scar. Putting it in a press is not friendly.

Soooo a few seconds to tape-wrap and grease are WAAAY less labour than having to pull and re-install the whole b****y upright and its family connections.

Let alone buy a NEW one - or pair - of the uber-costly buggers someday, maybe. And after they've gone MUCH scarcer than they already are.

Just lazy, Iyam.

Cheap, too.

PS: I have the 'copper' grease. And the Never-Seize.(Molybdenum disulphide doped). Both, however, potentially ADD yet-another dis-similar metal (or compound of same) to the brew.

Problematic? Doubtful.

But MOSTLY 'plain' grease (Silicon is also a metal, lest we forget..) reduced that possibility, remote or otherwise.

 

Job done and with exception of the Galvanic corrosion problem, that others have mentioned, it was a piece of cake to do.
Pressing the old bearings out was more difficult, although again not that difficult.
I'm still disappointed that they failed at such a low milage though!

 

Hi GMad,

Did you replace the hub assemblies, or did you replace the individual bearings inside the hubs? You mention pressing the old bearings out - do you mean separating the hubs from the vertical link, or did you actually mean pressing the bearings off the hubs?

Thanks in advance for any clarification. I know I'll be facing this job in the not-to-distant future, so I want to know about all the options.

Cheers,

Don

 

I replaced the hub assemblies and then the goosed bearings in the old hubs, so that I now have a spare set of complete hubs.

 

Life depends largely on road conditions. These have BALL bearings inside them.

Lower rolling resistance than a Timken style, but there is No Fine Way those can last as long as tapered-roller bearings in over-the-road use. Most especially as one can neither purge and re-lube, not adjust preload.

Mind - many of our 250,000 + mile Timkens were actually in pretty sad shape for half their life. They had just let us get away with ignoring that sorry state better than ball bearings do.

The good news is that these 'hubs' were PLANNED to be a unit-replaceable or 'consumable' item. Jaguar is but one vehicle of MANY that uses the "system". Even the specific X-350 hub is used on several others models and makes.

Ergo, the hubs are far more common than the X-350 itself.

At $105 the PAIR, (Detroit Axle) with new encoder and pigtail included, not really a big deal, and not worth MY time to rebuild the old ones.

 

I had no problem taking apart at all, but the Beck-Arnley part didn't fit, the rear assembly hits the lower knuckle bolt. It sits deeper than the OEM. I'm going to have to get the OEM part.

 

That stinks, Torrid, but thanks for posting the problem. You'll save others from the same hassle. Is the OEM part the only other option?

Cheers,

Don

 

Folks... Smell the coffee.

Ford was on-watch when my X-350 rolled out. I said "Ford", not Pierce-Arrow. Jaguar were not buying Beck-Arnley or Timken parts. Lowest bidder got the order.

They were buying the same Chinese made hubs Detroit Axle is selling for about $105 the pair. They ARE OEM.

Same CNC toolmarks. So perfect a fit the burr from machining fits the marks the old one left in the upright. Mind, I then polished both upright and hub smooth. Surface flaws can weaken that alloy.

Even the old sensor leads are just a spring clip pop, swap, re-clip. No need to get back of the plastic fender liner to mess with the leads unless they are reported wonky upline with an ABS/DSC fault code.