Hello everybody,

On the last few drives I had taken in my 726, I noticed a great deal of noise coming from the driver's side rear wheel. It was a sort of squeaking scratching sound that was hard to hear from inside the car, but was especially prominent if the windows were open and when driving past a building or under a bridge. The reverberation would make it abundantly clear something was amiss. I first thought it may have been the brakes dragging, but the noise was entirely dependent of the speed the car was going, that is, how fast the wheels were turning and did not change when the brakes were applied. Somebody who heard it when leaving a parking lot at a car show suggested it sounded like a bum bearing, so I resolved to pull the wheel off and inspect and replace the bearing. Naturally, I turned to the service manual, which as I have learned in the past is remarkably good at reducing big, complicated jobs into a very few amount of deceptively easy sounding procedures, but having pulled off the front wheels before to inspect the brake linings, I didn't think it would be that hard of a job. A day's work, I told myself, enough to get proper dirty but ultimately get a quieter, safer car.

Well, hell, that job isn't nearly as easy as I hoped. Having removed the wheel and the brake drum, I found the inside of the drum splattered with grease from the bearings. That probably explains why the bearings broke down, as all the grease that had been packed in them had flown out into the brakes. Probably also explains my difficulty equalizing the rear brakes. Having finally removed the axle with the bearings from the bearing housing, it was clear both bearings were shot, as they didn't roll smoothly. As of writing this, I still haven't been able to remove the outer race from the inside of the bearing housing, which will probably need heat to dislodge.

But, most confusingly, I don't believe I have found any sign of an inner seal. The one that should have kept the grease out of the brake drum was shot, and anyway was broken in removal, but I don't recall seeing any sign of an inner seal. Does anyone here know what I should look for, and assuming it is also busted, where to get a replacement? Further, what should the axle end play be when all is done? I read somewhere .002 to .004", but I'm not sure if that's correct for my car. I found when removing the axle that the play that was there was somewhere like an 1/8th or 1/4", which seemed excessive to me.

Does anybody have any advice for putting the axle and bearings back together?

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To be honest, I'm not totally sure what the rear end ratio is, but I don't think it's a high speed ratio as the car feels like it's topping out at 45 mph. Besides that, it's the stand 726 sedan, at hair over 4200 lb. (as I recall).

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That actually sounds like it may be what I ran into. On one particularly steep grade the car came chugging to a stop and actually stalled. I had to pull the handbrake, start the car again, then drop into the low-low gear to start moving again.

Howdy everyone,

I recently finished a lengthy drive with my 726, and though it was great fun there were a couple of hills that the car seemed to just barely able to climb. Some of them weren't terribly steep, but approaching them from a slow speed (say, after coming out of a turn) I found that third gear wasn't quite enough. Now, typically, I find the third gear to be powerful enough to do almost anything. These cars have so much torque that I can slow down to 5 mph or less and still pull away in third gear. On at least one hill I had to stop completely, drop it into first (I actually used the stump puller, low-low gear) and start again.

I've been suspicious that the car is running slightly lean (when engine breaking from high speed, say 40-45, there seems to be a bit of burping, like very slight backfires through the carb, but not loud, gunshot like backfires through the exhaust, and it stalled once or twice when parking) but I don't think it was so lean as to cause a loss of power when going uphill. Or could it be?

What do you do when approaching a hill? Do you need to drop it into a lower gear, or do you find enough power and torque in third gear? What kind of speeds can you usually maintain going uphill?

Thank you! That's very helpful.

Hello!

I'd like to repair the gas gauge on a 726 back to its original functionality. My understanding is that the bromide that fills the gauge eats at the potmetal unit it is contained in until, as my grandfather describes it, the fluid starts to leak out onto your shoes.

I understand that replacement parts for these are readily available at Classic and Exotic Service, Inc., and they look to be made of brass. They also sell the fluid to fill the gauges. How do those parts hold up over time? Do these gauges inevitably break again?

Hello!

I've got a couple of questions regarding some minor mechanical problems, but for the sake of the forum archives (say, someone looking for the answer to a particular problem) I'm going to start two separate topics.

I've been working on a 726, getting it back into roadworthy condition after some lengthy time garaged. One particular problem the car has had for decades is that the thermostat for the radiator isn't properly adjusted, and the shutters open too late, causing the car to overheat. The solution which my grandfather has always used was to simply prop the shutters open with sticks, which works well enough, but I'd like to get the car back to full functionality. The problem is, as I understand it, that the thermostat is buried under the radiator shell, and to get at it the hood and shell has to come off completely. That's something of a pain in the butt, so before I do any of that kind of work I figure that I should ask here and find out if anybody has any advice for adjusting the thermostat. Is there a way to adjust it and check its adjustment without having to take the front end of the car apart over and over again?


Thanks!

Howdy!

I've been working at getting a 726 back on the road. It had been garaged and rarely run for probably the last 20 years, and so all sorts of gremlins had moved in, especially in the fuel system. Now after having largely solved its essential mechanical problems by flushing the gas tank, cleaning the carb and vacuum tank, and repairing a broken sending unit, I'm moving on to some of the less critical problems.

One recurring problem seems to be a tendency to burn out the left headlight bulb. It worked when I first began working on it, but somewhere along the way the left bulb burned out. I replaced it with another bulb a fella happened to have on hand, which worked fine until the next time I started the car again and turned on the headlights, only to find the left one had burnt again.

The problem could just be the bulbs; they were both aged, and may have been just defective. But I suspect there may be some other electrical problem causing the bulbs to burn out. Anybody have any ideas where I should look?

Secondly, does anyone know where I can look for headlight bulbs? I think I ought to get a few of them.


Thanks!

DN

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