Wheel bearing going 3 mile island?

[GT6boy]

Coming back from a little show today, threw a somewhat heavy handed fast righthander in 2nd, and was perturbed to hear a very raucous graunching sound from(I think) the front LH wheel bearing .
Thankfully, this was 200 yards from the garage( :) ). It seemed to disappear when the steering was straightened? Only 2 more corners before the garage. But on slowing to reverse, there was definitily a little puff of smoke out of a wheelarch somewhere! Slowly reversed the car into the garage and will have a look at some time. God knows when, no spare time for this sort of non-sense soon, and I don't want the car languishing on the drive in the meantime. Oh well.

[drofgum]

Gt6boy,
Your description of the noise doesn't make me think "wheel bearing", but rather "tyre rubbing".
It shouldn't take very long to lift the front and check for play in the bearings, and/or noise from them. For your own peace of mind. and safety's sake, it really would be best to check.
                                                 Good luck,
                                                 Paul

[Royboy66]

yup, what Paul said, get the Jack out Brucie!  ;)

coincidently, 2mrw, I will be fitting new fwb's in prep for Le Mon !  8)

[GT6boy]

Hmmm....
Opened the garage door for the first time in 3 weeks. Looking to check the wheel bearings, so somewhat surprised to find the battery flat :X.
Noting that the seemingly unconnected are seldom so, i wonder whether this may be connected with the 'Pear shaped noise'?
The wheel bearings seem to spin without any graunching sounds and not excessive play when 'rocked'.
I know there was no current drain on the battery on switch-off, since I sorted out a battery drain issue recently, so i wonder if the bearings in the recently installed new alternator have given up, or it has somehow failed internally, resulting in the diode pack allowing a short to remain in situ on switch-off.
All will be revealed tomorrow, after charging the battery tonight :).

[GT6boy]

Curiouser and curiouser.
Battery drain was due to the temporary rev counter being fed from an un-switched fuse 3(thought i'd fixed that the other day :-/ :B?) Moved that supply to an ignition feed(white) wire from ignition switch pos.2/3, so no more battery drain at all, when all switched off :).
Alternator working as it should. All 4 wheels bearings seem to check ok. Front nearside has a little more play, but not excessive. No obvious cause apparrent then :-/. Took the old girl out for a minor thrashing and no complaints from anything,  gave it death round a good few roundabouts, but nothing fell off :).
So after that degree of success, decided to try fettling the floor dragging Kipping twin exhaust boxes. Managed to hang the muffler boxes from the rear valance and shuffle enough clearence from the Phoenix 'Y' piece to the chassis cross member :). It's still a little to close in the area of the 'U' clamps, so i've ordered some slim jim Mikalor clamps to improve the clearence further. Also want to fashion a bracket to hang the exhaust off the diff carrier too, so as to reduce the weight drawing down on the rubber exhaust bobbins :).
It does sit much higher now, but i'm still not happy with the rear boxes, as they have differing exit pipe angles, due to some piss-poor quality control. Ho-hum :X.