Follow-up Rusting Wheel Hub:

This is a follow-up to my post almost a year ago:

http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-ii-...elf-tire-rotation-kinda-rusty.html#post715081

My 07 at 22K has developed a strange buzzing that only sounds when ICE is on and does not track rpm. Buzz goes away as soon as the engine speeds up. Its right behind the glove box low like the front of the engine.I took the glove box out and its chassis related.. Its not very loud either. I put the car in inspection test mode and tried to listen to the ICE as its running but the ICE is too loud. That little motor makes some strange sounds when its running.
Overall interior wise The car is really quiet no squeeks or rattles so I can plainly hear anything weird.Not having the time to take it to the dealer I put the front up on jackstands and got under there and found nothing loose.Its hard to interogate anything without taking that heavy steel pan off thats blocking everything right there. I didn't as it looks like alot of work when your laying on the ground. I pushed and pulled on everyhting including the tin heat shield. I can see where the exhaust manifold attaches to the main pipe it has bolts with big springs on it so it might be those bolts need to be tightened there but I could not reach it.

Anyway while I had the car up I pulled the fornt wheels to see how my anti-hub sticking grease job I did a year ago is doing. Its doing really well. It stoped the corrosion in its tracks and the grease did not get on anything else either as there's an excellent seal from wheel to hub surface. PLus you cabn esaliy see the hub area through the wheel holes while the tire is on the car. I used synthetic bearing grease. Mobil 1 Bearing grease. I have a bottle of the silver anti-seize stuff but the bearing grease is less messy and just evaporates and leaves a film of lubrication. It works really well. Please see previous link and new pics below. Here's one thing I discovered. While I was working on it my neighbor came by a guy who has been in the car biz for 50 years owned his own garage for a while and now works for a car auction. He says " Hey where's the wheel bearing dust cover"? I say there isn't one. He says your kidding! Never saw that before.He looks at the wheel and then the hub and says maybe the wheel center dress cap comes off and thats the dustcover. If so I'd fill that hole up with some grease as the castelnut is pretty corroded (from last year) moisture is getting past that dress cap .I found the center dress cap pushes right off with just a little push from the back. Pops right off. With the wheel on that whole area is sealed by wheel to hub contact. So I filled it up with grease and put the cap back on. Been like that for about 200 miles and so far no grease leak or any other issue. Thats the ticket I think to stop that bearing nut farea from corroding.Lots of galvanic action right there.

Weird thing is my buzz stopped too. Somehow the stress of it being on jackstands made the buzzing stop.

A very strange thing I found is if you start the car while the front wheels are off the ground and then shut the car off it shuts off in neutral. You can then freely spin both front wheels. Swear to god.
When I first put the car up the wheels were locked like I'd expect. I started the ICE to do some AC work. Shut it off when I finished my ac work and then found both FRONT wheels were free and able to freely spin which is handy. Very odd.

Sorry for some reason I cannot post pictures with my brand new Dell here. Just got it and tonight just loaded my Camera Viewing software. Some setting is wrong. Will post 'em tomorrow.

 

Nice resurrection on a year old thread!

On these cars the hubs weld themselves to the wheels no matter how clean they are.
Has nothing to do with cleanliness.They come out of the factory wicked clean and the wheel will get welded to the hub.

And don't use compressed air either. Your blowing brake pad dust
into the atmosphere. Any mechanic knows that. DONT DO THAT.
Flush it off with brake cleaner.

The welded hub is a lovely interaction between disimilar metals and high wheel heat. Aluminum and cast iron.

Even when I used super high heat very expensive axle grease between hub and wheel 10K miles later the wheel did not fall off the rotor and had perfectly dried up the axle grease. It was gone. All traces of it leaving pristene metal. Never seen that before on any car.

And I can say there is a perfect seal between the hub and wheel when you torque it down as I greased the contact area between the wheel and the hub. Tightened the wheel down....removed the squished out grease and never had any grease seep out after that.
Water really cannot get in there. Still attacked the grease.

If you don't bust the wheel off the hub within every 10K miles on these cars and grease the contact area with high quality synthetic grease it will be very hard to get the wheel off in an emergency.

 

Good job! Thats about all it takes.