Wheel bearing play I don't understand

Is this press in with snap rings? Are the snap rings new (full thickness)?

Still grasping at straws.

Yep. Everything is new on both sides. Right side always has had the same play

Just a thought, and I'm not there seeing the parts in question so please don't take offense if you've gone through this.

Iron and steel are springy.  With force, you will be able to flex the hub and knuckle to be able to feel a bit of motion between the rotor and caliper with your fingertips.  However, a strut with worn internal bushings can have some wiggle-looseness when checking for "wheel bearing" play.  Could it be possible that the strut is loose and that is what you are feeling?

Top steer J- and N-body GMs were bad for wearing those bushings out because the steering forces acted directly on them.  Sold a few struts due to this, not leaking but very loose.  You don't see this type of play so much anymore but it still happens.  Can you work a finger up to where the strut shaft goes into the top of the strut and feel for play there?

 BRand new BC coilovers installed a month ago. Problem was there with the original suspension as well. Strut and knuckle have no movement. Caliper and bracket (bolted to the knuckle) have no movement. All movement is in the hub/bearing area. 

it's not a lot. It's not OMG it's gonna fall off movement. But it's there and it's annoying me because it shouldn't be there. 

Have you tested this after getting things up to temperature or are you looking at this with everything cold?  

Your wife's car does not have this issue, right? What if you swap her hub and bearing to your upright to see if it still happens? To me that would narrow the issue down to your upright if it were still having some play.

In reply to DeadSkunk (Warren) :

That's a path I'm not willing to go down. After the issues I had with the axles rusting to the hub on mine, hers is a year older with anothe 10k miles on it. I think I'll leave hers alone. 

I might just buy a pair of known good used knuckle assemblies. 

In reply to dean1484 :

Both.

WELL this weekend was fun. If by fun I mean axle nut (that was staked on BOTH sides) backed off first session of the day yesterday displaying new lights that I didn't even know existed. Took it out for a later session and it stayed tight this time but at the end of the session the ABS light was back on. I think it may have munched on the sensor when it backed loose. Drove home fine. Still tight. The play is still there. Won't go away. 

I wonder if that is related to the looseness??   
how did the day go apart from that?

In reply to jfryjfry :

I was getting free sessions for working so I only did 3 total. The last session the ABS light came back on and I parked it. No need to keep pushing it on a track I've been to a lot. I was hoping things would have worked better, I wanted to try playing with rear shock asjustments and instead spent it fixing silly E36 M3. 

Modern cars use double-row, deep groove ball bearings to handle both radial load and axial (thrust) loading.  To survive long term, both the outer and inner races have to be firmly clamped in place.  The outer shells are generally pressed into the knuckle or hub and retained with a circlip.  The inner races are clamped between the base of the spindle and the spindle nut.  S2000's were notorious for killing rear wheel bearings. The fronts and rears were the same bearing, but the rears were torqued about half of what the fronts got.  Once they started using the same torque values for the rears, the problem went away.

If yours is loose, either the outer race is loose in the housing, the inner race isn't being held tightly, or the bearing is junk with loose clearances. 

The outer race has to be tight in the hub/knuckle. The circlip is just for safety.   If you didn't have to use a hydraulic press or a really big slide hammer for a long time, it's not tight enough.

The base of the spindle should have a flat area that's the same diameter as the face of the inner race to sit on.  On drive wheels, the seating face is on the housing of the outer CV joint or tripod joint.  The spindle should have enough threads for the nut to firmly clamp the inner bearing without bottoming out.  There may be a machined washer to fit under the nut. If so, it should have the faces coated with never-seize to help with torquing the spindle nut.  If it should have a washer but it's not there, it's possible that the spindle nut can't thread on far enough to clamp the inner races. 

I might try to attach clamps to the rotor to get more leverage - try to see if it tells you where it's coming from. 
 

Other idea: is the wheel true? It almost sounds like you have a lug nut or three loose. As I think you would have noticed that by now, could the wheel be warped where it seats with the rotor?

In reply to mtn :

Good idea, but maybe instead of clamps maybe drill a couple holes in a piece of bar stock to bolt to the hub using the lugs in order to gain added leverage.

That could be tried with and without the rotor to see if the rotor/hub interface is causing it (high spot on the back side of the rotor hat?), or if the problem is present without the rotor and whee in place. 

No Time said:

In reply to mtn :

Good idea, but maybe instead of clamps maybe drill a couple holes in a piece of bar stock to bolt to the hub using the lugs in order to gain added leverage.

That could be tried with and without the rotor to see if the rotor/hub interface is causing it (high spot on the back side of the rotor hat?), or if the problem is present without the rotor and whee in place. 

That sounds like a better idea than mine. I was honestly thinking one of those anti theft steering wheel clubs - just something that can be attached to the rotor that isn't a wheel to give you a good view of what's going on. 

mtn said:

I might try to attach clamps to the rotor to get more leverage - try to see if it tells you where it's coming from. 
 

Other idea: is the wheel true? It almost sounds like you have a lug nut or three loose. As I think you would have noticed that by now, could the wheel be warped where it seats with the rotor?

To expand on this idea, maybe take some L or U shaped metal, drill a couple holes in it, a bolt it to hub with a couple lug nuts to give you some leverage to flex everything, but without the wheel in the way from you seeing how/what is moving.

Yes, bearings were pressed into the knuckles and had to be pressed out. This corner moves with 3 different wheels bolted andtorqued down. 

You mentioned BC coil overs and I know you said this issue existed before those were installed but have you verified the locking collar in the coil over is tight? I chased a similar issue a while back on my RX7. What felt like wheel bearing play was actually the threaded part of the strut moving around ever so slightly in the lower strut mount. For some reason no matter how much I torqued that locking ring it always seemed to works its way loose after a while. I ended up using blue Loc-tite and now they stay put.

In reply to infernosg :

I checked those as well. Since this is the exact same movement that has been there on the OE suspension, OE knuckle/hub and bearing and now present on aftermarket knuckle/hub/bearing and a 3rd bearing... I don't think that's the culprit.

gumby said:

Same movement with all OE vs all new makes me think the play is outside these parts.

Have you checked the lower ball joint?

And the winner is.... finally had time to spend on it. Found the lower ball joint moving in the socket. I've never had one cause play in all directions like a bearing though. 
 
Both lower arms ordered. 

w00t! Glad you found it.

I'll take my cookie on Friday

They both came out super duper easy. Almost too easy.... but now that they're out the drivers side was cracking the weld for the front bushing. Both compliance bushings have the start of tears on top and bottom. 

New ones here Friday. Hopefully in time to autox Sunday?

I always get someone else to look as I shake, or vice versa, because while you are moving the wheel, you are also moving your eyeballs, which makes it really hard to locate a small amount of movement.

Just an observation that seems related to this thread.

In reply to Streetwiseguy :

I also find that feel can be as useful as vision when checking for play. Checking for movement when using the bar under the tire you can feel the movement before you can see it.

Additionally some times it helps to  check with just one side raised and also both raised. If it's a small amount of play the stabilizer bar can apply enough force to hide play when dealing with unloaded lower ball joints if only one side is raised. 

So I replaced my Bluetooth control arms with new Turkish made LCA's. Happens to be where most of these UB Rio arms were some amped out. Install requires the rotor to come off because clearance is too tight with the 11" rotors. Everything else self explanatory. Cleaned out the abs sensor from the shin shards that shredded. Torqued down, drove it 4 miles and rechecked. Nothing iced. 
 

oddly the steering feels .... Off? Different maybe. Something is missing but I don't think it's a bad thing. Maybe Saturday I'll run the local autox and see what happens. 
 

still love this little turd though.