Look Twice At Those Old Parts

“Whoa! Gimme that back!”

We were working on the front brakes of a project car, and the owner, who was assisting, was about to toss out the used wheel bearing that had been removed when my friend turning the wrenches suddenly lit up. Fresh wheel bearings were there, in the boxes, retrieved ahead of time from a local parts house before the project began – exactly as you’d expect. Yet my friend was adamant about wanting the old set back.

If you turn your own wrenches, you likely know just why the seasoned mechanic was more interested in returning the old bearings rather than installing new ones. Those fresh bearings were typical of what you’ll find on a local shelf – an off brand, manufactured in a far-away land not known for quality. He’d already had too many experiences with the bane of all professional mechanics: the “comeback.” That’s where a customer vehicle returns to the shop after being repaired because something isn’t right. It is the thing that motivates good shops to do the job right the first time – nobody wants to fix the same car twice while getting paid once.

These concerns stem from an epidemic of “bad” parts that’s been spreading across the market, and it’s now reaching beyond the late-model daily drivers and into the enthusiast-car realm. Those wheel bearings serve as a good example of how long-time hobbyists can get caught off guard performing repairs they’ve probably executed many times in the past with no issues. Who worried about wheel bearings before? Grease them correctly, install them properly, and don’t think about them again… or at least, not for many miles.

It’s not that all new parts are inferior; in many cases, you can shop a little more carefully to seek out the remaining good suppliers. Your local parts house may even be able to get them, but you’ll probably have to request the brand you seek and then wait for those items to be ordered and shipped to make sure they’re in your hands when the job begins. Lately I’ve been noticing a growing number of old-car people anticipating their needs and adjusting to this practice.

This situation may also mean that many of us enthusiasts need to eschew another habit that’s been pervasive in our ranks for years: The tendency to want to replace everything we touch. This runs counter to what many of us were taught in shop class or from any other lessons possibly gleaned from veteran technicians, where more than likely you were instructed to disassemble, inspect, clean, and replace parts only as needed. This meant you only resorted to replacement only after discovering something that was worn or broken and no longer within factory allowable specs.

Meanwhile, gearheads often seem to feel like any wear item that has already seen use, especially if we didn’t touch it ourselves previously, ought to be replaced. So, in the example of our brake job, we’d have installed not just new pads, but new rotors, new wheels bearings with new races, new grease seals, and maybe even new calipers and brake hoses. I think most of us who’ve worked this way are seeking some sense of mechanical Zen, where the presence of entirely fresh components bestows a calming, secure sensation – nothing can go wrong once everything is new, right?

Well, no more. These days, if you’re not careful, you may be the one responsible for introducing the failure point by going on a no-bolt-left-unturned campaign to eradicate previously used parts from a vehicle. Given the current state of many replacement parts, you may want to look a little more carefully, and sympathetically, at the parts already on your car.

So, what did we determine after taking a closer look at those old wheel bearings from our brake-job project? It turned out they might have been the originals for the car we were working on, produced more than 40 years ago somewhere in the Midwest to specs laid out by General Motors. If we’d taken the traditional approach to maintenance, the age of those parts alone would likely have urged us toward replacement. But this car had well under 100,000 original miles, and the old parts looked great once cleaned. Our shop teachers would have been proud as we scrutinized the rollers and races for pits or other flaws, then repacked and reinstalled them. The car’s owner got a little late-season driving in before the weather turned here in the Northeast, and all seemed well in the front end of his old Chevy.

Meanwhile, the rest of us who’d had a hand in the job felt a tinge of a different kind of gearhead Zen – this time from the knowledge that the parts in the car were made right, even if it was a long time ago.