Rear wheel bearing replacement... Failed
 

Hi,

I tried to replace my rear wheel bearing.. and failed miserably.

First let me start with parking brake shoes.. they are pain in the butt to remove and reinstall.. are there any tricks to it?

Unfortunately there are no good articles on how to do it.. most of them are targeted towards removing the whole assembly and press it out. I plan to use generic hub puller and generic bearing tool.

The problem I have is:
In all articles it seems to be a hole through wich you can stick the bolt of bearing removal tool.. how do I get the Big Bolt out of there? any step-by-step instructions?

I removed the HUB.. and what next.. in all pictures I see axle with the bolt moved to the side.. how do I do that?

Thanks
Sasha

Sorry, it's a little bit difficult to understand your problem from your description. First, you might try doing a search on www.renntech.org I seem to recall some very good directions on bearing removal there, with good pictures. Second, it sounds like maybe you haven't removed the axles. You can't get the bearing out without doing this. There is a nut on the end of the axle that takes something like 250+ ft lbs of torque to remove! You have to take out the center cap in your wheels, chock the wheels, and loosen the nut with the car on the ground and NOT in gear. It is TOUGH. I highly recommend a 3/4" breaker bar, cheater extension, and impact quality socket. My 1/2" tools were a bit undersized for this job. Harbor Freight quality sockets will simply shatter into tiny pieces. Also, don't forget that you will need to re-torque this nut when putting everything back together. Most "normal" torque wrenches do not go this high, so you may want to think about this BEFORE getting into this too deep.

FYI, I used the SIR B90 tool to remove my bearings and it worked beautifully.

Kirk

Now don't say I never did anything for ya! ;)

Here's all you should ever need to know about rear wheel bearing replacement. These give you the background:

http://www.renntech.org/forums/index.php?/tutorials/article/134-wheel-bearings-101/

http://www.renntech.org/forums/index.php?/tutorials/article/131-rear-wheel-bearing-102/


Leading up to this:

http://www.renntech.org/forums/index.php?/topic/16729-rear-wheel-bearing-102/page__p__83721


Kirk

sasha - the 'big bolt' is part of the axle. to get it out of there, you have two choices:

1) mark your camber eccentrics w/ your current alignment settings. remove the track rod & remove the lower control arm bolt from the rear subframe. now you can pound the axle bolt out of the bearing & set it aside. drawback: you will probably need an alignment after this.

2) remove the six bolts that hold the axle to the transmission. you can now remove the axle from the transmission. pound out the axle from the wheel bearing & remove the entire axle from the car. drawback: the six bolts are a pain to get in & out, and a lot of people have trouble with them coming loose while driving. if you go this route, use red loctite & torque to spec.