Any ideas on why my wheel bearing won’t fit over the spindles on my late 72 914? It’s my understanding that with age the wheel bearings will get looser on the spindle. However after figuring out all of my problems with upgrading to e21 brake calipers and installing fresh fag wheel bearing kit the rotor will not fit all the way on the passenger side spindle. I removed the bearing and tried to put it on and gets stuck 75% of the way over. Btw the drivers side fits perfect.

I can't quite tell from the pic but is your old INNER race still on the spindle? Did the old bearing come apart when removed?

Your car may have an early spindle fitted on that side. I ran into the same problem when replacing the wheel bearings on my early 1970 (December 1969 build date). The early spindle is a slightly larger diameter than the later spindles.

Does the bottom of the strut have a pinch bolt (early0 for the ball joint or a wedge bolt (late) pin. Pinch bolt has a . grove all the way through one side. Wedge bolt just has a hole in the bottom and a perpendicular offset hole in the side.

all of the 914-4 front wheel bearings are the same part numbers so early or late would not make any difference. Maybe someone sent you a 914-6/911 wheel bearing instead? Prefix for the four bearings are 311 prefix for the six/911 bearings are 211

I will have to check the box if I still have them but I picked them up from you so I would be surprised if this was the case

I'm with Conrad...inner race still on.

I just did some front wheel bearings about a month ago and they were a very close tolerance. You might have too much grease on the spindle; just s very thin coating is enough.

I'm guessing you had trouble and pulled them out of the rotor? Inner bearing should be in the rotor and sort of held in place with the inner seal.

Doc... the 914-6 spindles are bigger diameter than a 914-4 spindle. So if it was a six bearing, it would rattle around on the spindle, it would not be too tight.

Clay

I have seen problem with some Asian bearings where their inner race has too small radius and prevented bearing from seating tight against strut. Kinda difficult to explain but strut spindle has large radius, bearing race has small radius, so two would not seat together completely. It spaced the front rotor outward too far so caliper would not fit.

When you compare name brand bearing with inexpensive bearing, you can see the difference. SKF or FAG bearing solves issue.

Jim

Was this ever resolved? Just curious.