Triumph Repair: 79 Spitfire, factory hub, wheel bearings

Question
1) problem when driving, a grinding "metal-to-metal" noise from left rear hub with every rotation of wheel, (grind, grind, grind)possible problem? (fyi-loaned out car and was informed car was extremely abused) Could something have broken?
2) for prob above, thought I should replace bearings on both sides - can't remove the hub on either side - is there a secret?
3) your suggestion for "best repair manual" for this car

Answer
Hi Rebecca,
Most likely a wheel bearing. If you have already looked at the brakes as the cause the only other thing is the wheel bearings. The problem removing the hub is common and even with the factory hub puller many hubs are destroyed because of the design. The hub is on a long shallow taper and plus a keyway and the flange on the hub is far too narrow so many times when the hub is removed it warps the hub. Another bad design is that the large needle bearings run directly on the axle so when a bearing goes bad it destroys the axle too. You may try applying pressure with a puller and apply heat to the hub. But you should expect to need a hub and axle when the bearings go bad.

Even when a car is road hard and abused, it would be difficult to damage the bearings. If the bearings went out while some one was driving the car hard it was a coincidence that the bearings went out at that time and they were going to fail no matter how the car was driven.

I have found that the overall best repair manual is the Bentley manuals and next is Haynes in my opinion. At times I find flaws in both but that is true of factory manuals too.

Howard