55 BelAir Wagon BALLS were stock then and not too strong. Hi , You've already received quite a bit of good advice in this thread. I spent over 21 years as a test engineer for NTN Bearings, working on both ball and tapered roller bearings. I also have a '59 Corvette which uses the same front wheel (ball) bearings. I'd like to add a couple of points to the other comments. - When removing the outer races, be especially careful not to scar or damage the drum bores. Using a brass drift is a good idea, if you don't have a press and the appropriate press tooling. - Cleanliness is one of the MOST IMPORTANT issues when working on wheel bearings. Years ago, bearings failed from defects in the steel metallurgy (inclusions) which eventually formed fatigue cracks and led to pieces of the raceways (& balls) breaking away from the surface (called spalling). However, the newer steels used to make today's bearings are so clean (if they are from a quality bearing manufacturer), that fatigue damage is rarely the failure mode. Contamination, from careless handling, dirty tools and work area, etc, are BY FAR the main reason these bearings fail prematurely. So, treat your bearing assembly area like an operating room!! - When reassembling, it is best to press the outer races into the drums making sure to press only on the face of the race. If you have to hammer them in, try to use a round plate that fits the entire perimeter on the race, so you can install it straight. Hammering the race in with a punch, even if it's brass, isn't a good idea. It tends to mis-align the race and generates debris from the end of the punch. After the races are installed, make sure they are clean and free of any debris. - The inner races will have the balls and retainer as a unit in most cases. These should slide on the spindle with minimal effort. Inspect the spindles for excessive wear under the bearing bores. If the previous bearing was spinning on the spindle, you should see some significant scoring. If not, you're probably OK. Pack them with good quality wheel bearing grease and put a little more in the cavity between the bearings, but don't fill it 100%. The inner bearing is placed in the drum and the seal is installed, holding it in place. Make sure you install the seal straight, using something that will cover the entire seal so it presses or taps in square. Again, make sure you don't get any contamination inside the bearing cavity. - When you tighten the spindle nut, don't get carried away. If you tighten it too much, it is pretty easy to dent the races because the balls have a very small contact area. This type of damage, called brinnelling, will lead to very early failure. Typically, after you tighten the spindle nut, you want to back it off just enough to get the cotter pin hole to line up with the castle nut. You don't really want to run ball bearings with preload from the nut, you just want to make sure they aren't loose, causing wobble and misalignment. rollers in 1967 chev This is what the chassis service manual(in this case 67) says, "While rotating wheel, tighten spindle nut to 12 ft/lbs. torque. Back off the adjusting nut one flat and insert cotter pin. If slot and pin hole do not line up, back off the adjusting nut an additional 1/2 flat or less as required to insert cotter pin. Spin the wheel to check that it rolls freely and then lock the cotter pin by spreading the end and bending it around. Bearings should have zero preload and .001" to .008" end movement when properly adjusted". So as you can see, they don't have to tightened as much as ball bearings. least words ( Ilove this) 67 Chev FSM defined the adjustment procedure perfectly! The tapered roller bearing does not require the preload that the original ball type did. So, the tapered bearings like "a little clearance" or they will burn up. The ball type dislike clearance ! and operate better with a small amount of preload (like 20ft lbs).