Front wheel bearing on a '01S

[Frodo]

Well, yeah, I did run into that issue, unfortunately. The way it is now, there's no way to get the wheel spindle/ABS (#5 on your pic) piece out. (Things may have changed between '99 and '01?)

Okay, Insite, onto what you were recommending. I loosened the top end-link bolt at the top of the wheel bearing carrier:



Doesn't that also help hold the wheel bearing carrier to the strut? I should push that bolt all the way through and out (ie, to the left in my pic)?

Keeping in mind that I'm an admitted noob, here's where I also start to run into terminology problems. You say to loosen the lower control arm bolt. Now 101 Projects refers to the components of the suspension as the 'wishbone' and 'control arm'. Bentley calls the same pieces the 'transverse control arm' and the 'diagonal control arm.' They're all the same thing, right? So when you talk about loosening the lower control arm bolt, are you talking about the bolt by the nickle (next to the ball joint)? If so, again: do I take it all the way out or just loosen it?



I know these are idiotic questions, I just want to do this right the first time...

[insite]

my car has coilovers, so that may have been the difference.....

in your first picture, remove the bolt completely. you want the wheel carrier to slide down the strut. if you can make this happen without doing anything else, then GOOD.

if the wheel carrier will NOT slide down the strut after you've removed that bolt, then you need to only LOOSEN the control arm bolt. in your last picture, the quarter is sitting on the control arm. trace it to the left of the picture; there is a single bolt that holds the control arm to the subframe under the car. if you loosen it, the control arm will move & allow you to lower the wheel carrier enough to get the ABS stator out of the upright.

[Frodo]

OK, here's where I am now. (I'm workin' on this in short bursts, when I get home from work. Not my DD, no huge hurry...except the weather is suddenly BEAUTIFUL, perfect driving weather, unlike what it's been for the past several months. So maybe I AM in a hurry.)

Per the above recommendations, got the endlink disconnected from the wheel bearing carrier, and got the inner bolt loosened on the control arm:



You can see how far the carrier has dropped on the strut. Here's the problem:




In the first pic, you can see I've gotten the carrier lowered by maybe 2" (see the horizontal line around the strut, separating dirty areas from clean, black areas)...it's still not enough. Looking at the second pic (taken from behind the wheel bearing carrier, ie from the inside looking out), I think I probably still need maybe another inch before I have any chance of slipping the wheel spindle/ABS piece (#5 on earlier schematic pic) out to start the actual wheel bearing work. The bottom of the strut (for the uninitiated, it's the more-or-less vertical black cylinder in the upper left part of the pic) is still in the way.

I've been tapping on the carrier (light hammer taps, with a piece of wood taking the blows) to get it as far as I have. My question now is whether or not I'm going to create problems with either the LCA ball joint:



...or the ball joint at the innermost end of the diagonal control arm:



It may be hard to tell from the photos, but they're both getting some pretty significant angles to them. (The carrier tapped down to where it is pretty easily; now progress is getting tough.) I'm really trying NOT to break anything here.

I guess my options are:

1) disconnect the strut at the top, which might give me some more play.
2) unbolt the bolts at the ball joint and/or at the inner end of the diagonal control arm.

I was trying to avoid #1, because I think everything then gets all loosy-goosy which, I would think, would make extracting the hub and bearing more difficult. (I'm working alone much of the time.)

Are there any "issues" involved with #2 other than just wrenching off the nuts? No ball joint tool involvement? (I don't have one---though I suppose I could pick one up.)

Would a spring compressor (available at the local Auto Zone or Advanced Auto) be of any help?

Any advice appreciated.

[insite]

don't split the ball joint; it never goes well unless you have the nice handy porsche tool. remove the bolt that holds the control arm to the subframe (you loosened this earlier). that should give you enough play. i don't think you'll need to remove the diagonal link, but i've been wrong before....

you have a better view there; if you think the diagonal link is a problem, remove the bolt in the center of the control arm BEFORE you separate the control arm from the subframe. once you have enough room, use a c-clamp to pinch the upright to the strut (put the c-clamp where the drop link goes). i think you'll get better leverage w/ the SIR tool if the wheel carrier is still attached to the strut.

[tommy986]

I think it's the diagonal that is limiting the downward movement at this point.
Remove the bolt next to the nickel in the pictures you took. Then slide the diagonal fork out of the way.

to answer your questions
#1 yes, removing the strut bolts at the top along with the diagonal brace will allow the strut to drop down, then you can swing it out from under the fender and pull the strut out of the carrier. I was replacing the struts at the same time, so this is what I did.
#2 I also just removed the ball joint bolt and pulled the carrier off the car. I had previously done the rear ball joints with the carrier on the car. After wrestling with that I had decided I wanted to do the fronts on my work bench.

At some point you will need to get the ball joint removal tool if you plan to continue to work on the car. The tool I use is KD 3916. I found mine at NAPA, but a quick online search shows that SEARS has it now for $20.

[Frodo]

Actually, when the most recent pics were taken, I had already removed the bolt that holds the control arm to the subframe. (Just loosening it really didn't seem to do much.)

On control arm terminology I sometimes get a little screwed up, so I guess I'll go with what Bentley says: "transverse" being the one that is perpendicular to the long axis of the car, ie the one with the ball joint at the bottom of the wheel carrier. "Diagonal" is the other, the one that bolts onto the center of the transverse.

I think you're right, Tom, I think it is the diagonal portion of the control arm that is holding things up. You both recommended I remove the bolt that holds the two parts together (ie "next to the nickel") and that makes sense to me. Insite, you recommended I do that BEFORE I separate the control arm from the subframe. I assume you mean before I remove the bolt holding the transverse control arm (not the diagonal) to the subframe, right? If so, as I indicated above, it's too late for that.

What's the problem that you run into doing it after instead of before? Is it just tougher to wrestle the two arms apart from each other? I could probably put the jack under the inner end (where the bolt has already come out) and lift it back up to approximately where it was.

If you're reading between the lines here you may have already accurately concluded I got NOTHING done on this today, other than reading your suggestions. It was a really tough, really long day at work---I got home just too bushed to even think about working in the garage. The fact that it was like 90 out didn't help matters...

[insite]

i looked at my car in the air yesterday; my coilovers don't block access to the ABS stator. sorry for the misinormation early on!