[dogbone]

Let's file this one under---Wow, that doesn't look fun at all....

I decided after my cracked hub adventure that I wanted to replace all 4 hubs, install new studs, new lug nuts, replace the front driver rotor hat because I'm worried it saw some pretty strange forces it doesn't usually see. There were some weird gouge markings around the hat's hub hole.....didn't like that. (And I changed out one other thing that I'll talk about in the next post.)

The car is 9 years old. It's been on track 6+ years. I've replaced the front hubs several times, but the rears were original to the car.

I find it amazing how different the swapping process is between the front hubs and the rear hubs. The fronts I can do myself. I did it at the track. Fairly easy. The toughest part is reaching the bolt heads to tighten them properly.

The rears? Wow. The rears are something completely different. They disconnected every damn thing and pulled the uprights off the car. Then the process of getting that bearing out of the upright is no joke. The rear hub bearing is a beefy item and it is pressed into that upright real good. My hat is off to the guys at Minicorsa for diving in head first on this task. That was tough work.

So, it was a big round of preemptive maintenance this week---replacing some stuff before it goes bad. It took many hours. We also did an alignment since it's been awhile, and since so much stuff was disconnected. I'm glad we aligned it because the rear passenger side was way off. Whether it was from driving or from all the disconnected stuff is hard to know.

I am planning on replacing the front hubs once per year now. The car has so much grip, aero, power, brakes......replacing the hubs is a small price to pay for having all those things. I chatted with a high-end endurance race shop, and they just use regular hubs, and replace them regularly.

btw the way, thanks to the Bimmerworld stud kit, I have a new and better way to double-nut studs onto the hubs. In the past, I didn't buy the whole kit of studs and nuts from Bimmerowrld, I only bought studs. And I used old lug nuts for double-nutting which is not ideal because the noses/threads get trashed so you can't use the same lug nuts for very many installs.....If you buy the full kit of studs and nuts, they include two M12x1.5 hex nuts to use for double-nutting. So much better! Just two of those hex nuts were able to install all 20 studs. M12x1.5 is a bit tough to find in regular local hardware stores, but I recommend getting some. And I believe the hex nuts are 19mm, so you need to pre-plan for that too for the installation.

Anyway, the car is all back together and ready to go. I'm planning on Buttonwillow with Speed District on May 25 and then Speed Ventures Bimmerfest/Bimmer Challenge at ACS on the 26th.