Ticking Noise from my front Caliper. Good news and bad news. Love to get your thoughts.

DennisMo said:

The hub is not running true so it cant be caliper mount or disc mounting. Nor the spokes etc.

Should it not be that tightening the spindle nut pulls the bearings tight within their outer race housings?

Dennis

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DennisMo said:

There is a rotational regular ticking sound from my front caliper. I lifted the front wheel and (good news) found the cause by rotating the wheel.

The disc is true on the front hub. But, bad news, the front hub right hand side is not running rotationally true. It is has wobble that translates to make the disc move.
Rough guess is that there is at least 10 thou plus of wobble. The edge of the disc is visibly moving in a vertical plane with wheel rotation. ie in line with the wheel

I replaced all the front bearings a couple of years ago and the ticking did not go away or reduce.
I replaced front pads 3 times and tick did not go away. (There were two low quality caliber seal kits....)

If I rotate the front spindle 180 degrees and retighten while front wheel lifted, there is no tick for a few miles, then it comes back.

I will pull it apart in a few months and look for bearing outer races not tight and for spindle loose in bearing inner race.

Has anyone run across this before? Love to get advice!

Thanks
Dennis

Click to expand...

Torontonian said:

No , if they are not fully home seated into the hub

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DennisMo said:

There is a rotational regular ticking sound from my front caliper. I lifted the front wheel and (good news) found the cause by rotating the wheel.

The disc is true on the front hub. But, bad news, the front hub right hand side is not running rotationally true. It is has wobble that translates to make the disc move.
Rough guess is that there is at least 10 thou plus of wobble. The edge of the disc is visibly moving in a vertical plane with wheel rotation. ie in line with the wheel

I replaced all the front bearings a couple of years ago and the ticking did not go away or reduce.
I replaced front pads 3 times and tick did not go away. (There were two low quality caliber seal kits....)

If I rotate the front spindle 180 degrees and retighten while front wheel lifted, there is no tick for a few miles, then it comes back.

I will pull it apart in a few months and look for bearing outer races not tight and for spindle loose in bearing inner race.

Has anyone run across this before? Love to get advice!

Thanks
Dennis

Click to expand...

Carl H said:

I brought a new disc a bunch of years ago, the UK directions stated " It had been tested for true and was supposed to run true within 1 thou." If it didn't it was the fault of the mounting surface of the center hub. So when it didn't run as advertised, I remounted the disc and swapped the mounting position on the center hub. It still ran out of true and it still had the same area where there was a 5 thou runout as well as the same wobble. So basically it was a crappy disc and I had True Disc resurface it came back perfect.

So mark the area(s) of run out and then swap mounting positions of the disc and see if things change. Also is there any clicking in the caliper mounts or rattling of the pads . As far as the vertical run out are the mounting holes a sloppy fit? And finally sometimes there is rust in the rim's hollow bead sides that makes noises.

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DennisMo said:

Thanks for all your comments.
I did not install the new bearings with a heat gun/freeze bearings.
But I would think that tightening the spindle would align the bearings internally as the outer races would be confined

If I look straight on in the plane of the disc at the edge of the disc, while spinning it, there is no warping. ie there is no left to right movement that would push the brake pads back into the caliber so to speak.

But when I look at the disc from the right side of bike and rotate it, the disc moves as if it was not centered properly on the front hub.
But I checked the hub and the hub is wobbling as it is rotating. I am perplexed that there can be about 10 thou of wobble.
I can't imagine I removed and installed new bearings and did not find outer races loose or inner bearings really loose on the spindle.

I will pull it apart in the winter.

But I will try an experiment where I loosen the front spindle and rotate the spindle 90 degrees, put weight on the forks to take up any free play, and tighten severely. Then test ride. And then repeat test rotating the spindle another 90 degrees.
And if that doesn't work, then loosen spindle but not rotate it but rotate the wheel 90 degrees, put weight on the forks and tighten.

Thanks to all again
Dennis

Click to expand...

DennisMo said:

Thanks for all your comments.
I did not install the new bearings with a heat gun/freeze bearings.
But I would think that tightening the spindle would align the bearings internally as the outer races would be confined

If I look straight on in the plane of the disc at the edge of the disc, while spinning it, there is no warping. ie there is no left to right movement that would push the brake pads back into the caliber so to speak.

But when I look at the disc from the right side of bike and rotate it, the disc moves as if it was not centered properly on the front hub.
But I checked the hub and the hub is wobbling as it is rotating. I am perplexed that there can be about 10 thou of wobble.
I can't imagine I removed and installed new bearings and did not find outer races loose or inner bearings really loose on the spindle.

I will pull it apart in the winter.

But I will try an experiment where I loosen the front spindle and rotate the spindle 90 degrees, put weight on the forks to take up any free play, and tighten severely. Then test ride. And then repeat test rotating the spindle another 90 degrees.
And if that doesn't work, then loosen spindle but not rotate it but rotate the wheel 90 degrees, put weight on the forks and tighten.

Thanks to all again
Dennis

Click to expand...