It wasn't particularly hard but I managed to spread it out for most of the day with breaks for beer, soaking in the pool, bbqing, and an unplanned father's day celebration.
I did it without the special $250 tool. I found and reviewed two or three DIY's and accumulated some parts for a couple weeks that I thought I would need. I didn't remove the strut, only the ball joing connections for the toe and camber control arms. A generic hub puller that did the trick for the pulling the hub, which came out with half the bearing attached to it.
A 12"x 5/8 threaded rod with various washers got the rest of the bearing and shell out. The one part that might be harder to find is a cup to draw the bearing into. A 3" pipe or aluminum conduit union would be perfect but Home Depot doesn't stock anything that large. Maybe a plumbing or electrical supply store. Fortunately I had a piece of pipe that did the trick. I'll try a little sketch.
The part of the bearing still seized to the hub might give you a problem. I scored it slightly with an angle grinder blade so that it cracked and slid off. The most frustrating thing was getting the shafts of the ball joints to slide back in. The socket has a lip near the top and the shaft kept getting hung up and would slide past the lip. I ended up smoothing the lip just a bit with a drill and it slide right in. I put the bearing in the freezer before pressing it in with the same threaded rod tool and also chilled the hub before pressing it in.
Threaded Mode
