Back in the sixties, my wife and I were into sportscar rallies. It became apparent after a while that the cars that were doing the best were Porsches and they measured off the left front wheel. (Coincidently, many rallies used Porsches to make the official mileage measurements.) We swapped our British sports cars for a Porsche and went on to win quite a few rallies over the next ten years or so. I guess it wasn't that critical. If you used a rear-wheel measuring car and didn't push it too hard, your accuracy would be close. Maybe not enough to win, but in the ballpark.

After leaving the rally scene (and when Porsches priced themselves out of our budget), we went back to older British sportscars and, of course, M-Bs.

I did change a few wheel bearings through the years, but I don't recall that any were caused by water ingress. The cable housing, at least on the Porsches, was pretty water-tight where it entered the spindle on the inside.

Wes