Front wheel hub advice

[Robking]

Hey folks, I'm putting my front suspension together and looking for any advice on how to handle my banged up wheel hub. I'm trying to just get this thing rolling with minimal cash outlay, so I'm postponing my planned SSBC disc upgrade and trying to use my stock drum brakes (but protecting spindles at all cost).

This thing (68 coronet) came to me partially disassembled, and some yahoo apparently was a firm believer in "I need a bigger hammer". Long story short they have whacked the back of the wheel hub and distorted the lip that the seal would need to slide past. The bearing race is fine but I'm 99% sure I cant press the seal in and even if I did it will be distorted (granted I pretty much just want to drive it a few 100 feet at a time so spindle wear is probably not a problem).

I considered putting a washer in there to protect the bearing race and grinding that lip off with a dremel tool and grinding wheel. Curious if anyone else has dealt with something similar.

Of course a cheap replacement would work too.

Thanks for the help!

 

[khryslerkid]

You could take a flat punch and work that back out. Don't go real crazy on it because it could crack. Doing it cherry hot would be safer if you have a torch. Get it close and finish it out with a dremel. Just make sure it's close to perfect on the inside so it won't distort the seal when installed.

 

[Robking]

Thanks for the advice, that worked pretty well! Didn't have to Dremel much at all, seems to be back within a few thousandths.

 

[khryslerkid]

Thanks for the advice, that worked pretty well! Didn't have to Dremel much at all, seems to be back within a few thousandths.

View attachment 772655

Almost looks like the bearing race is distorted. Might be the picture but if it is, that's a different problem. How far down from the edge was it hammered on?

 

[Robking]

Not very far, I think the race itself is ok. I did have to do some more cleanup work to get the seal to lay in there and not rock. I haven't pressed it in yet but I think it will be ok. Thanks for the advice, that was a lot easier than grinding all that metal away.