Milano/75 Rear Transaxle Inner Bearing/caster arm bushings

[Loosej@domain.elided]

Alfisti,
   My '89 Milano Gold began making a howling sound from under the car, at the 
rear.  It seemed most noticeable at about 40 MPH.  It was very loud and took 
the pleasure away from listening to those cams !
    We jacked up the car and put our hands on the top and bottom of each 
tire.  With hands in this position, we pushed in and out on the tire .  On 
the 2 Milanos that we tested this way, there was just a very slight bit of 
play on the normal wheels.  On the wheel with the bad bearing there was a 
noticeable amount of play and it made a lot of noise as you pushed it in and 
out.  It was obviously looser than the others.
   Ralph Moorhouse helped  to diagnose the problem and encouraged me to do an 
"at home" fix.  With the aid of Ralph and his 3 pound slide hammer,  we 
replaced the passenger side rear wheel bearing in about 5 easy hours.  To me 
the most critical part was removing the locking ring that holds the bearing 
in place.  If one is not careful and destroys the threads in the DeDion, 
things would be very grim.  But with a little care, destroying  those threads 
can be avoided.  There is a special ALfa tool to remove this ring, but we did 
not have it, are they available to buy?   A 36mm socket was needed to remove 
the nut on the wheel shaft, i used an impact hammer to remove it, but it 
could have been done manually. 
     So, in the last week, i have changed out a rear wheel bearing, installed 
new poly caster arm bushings in front,  bought some new NAPA replacement 
headlight bulbs and the Milano seems like a new car !  I strongly recommend 
those caster arm bushings, they are an easy fix and seemed to do wonders in 
"tightening up" the whole front end !!
  Thanks Ralph !
Joel Lewis
Houston
'89 Milano
'74 GTV

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