greetings!
I recently had the tires changed on my 240. subsequently the nut covers on my rear wheels fell off, i should have checked their work before driving off!

Ive been driving without the nut covers and now the "dust caps" have fallen off.

just got new ones from tasca but im wondering if theres any damage done by driving with the center bearing caps off? what should it look like with the caps off?

 

You need those dust covers, not only do they hold grease in but they keep dirt and water out. Driving it with out those will cause a wheel bearing to go and even worse ruin your spindle. If you thing that any water or dust could have gotten in there its time to have your bearings cleaned and repacked before putting the bearing caps back on.

 

thanks for the reply!

this is exactly what I was worried about!

is it difficult to repack the wheel bearings myself? I'm due for a brake job maybe I can do that while I'm in there?

safe to say put on the dust covers for now though yes?

 

No its not a hard job at all. Just has to be done right. The bearing need what they call preload, its when you slightly over tighten the bearing so that you can assure its well seated. Then you need to back off and just snug the bearing so that its not to loose. Thats why they use a cotter pin to hold the nut on after , you do not just tighten down the nut. Doing that would cause a bearing to wear out very fast. In other words that bearing cannot be over tight or to loose.

I found a video of someone doing trailer bearings , its about the same for the front wheels of a volvo I'd say take a look at it and see if its something you would want to tackle.

 

huh, we lost 2 of those Corona hubcaps at least 15 years ago, car has like 400k miles, the bearing caps haven't ever budged.

a local shop used to glass bead polish those coronas, mount them with chrome lug nuts, and had some volvo logo inserts for the axles (strictly for appearance) that snapped onto the holes on the coronas... we seriously considered doing that, but by the time we got around to pulling the trigger, they couldn't get the center caps anymore.