Don't like the adverts?  Click here to remove them

Front Wheel Bearing Change

Bert

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 11, 2016
Messages
449
Country Flag
great_britain
Hello good people.
Back in July my nearside front wheel bearing started to deteriorate quite quickly, finally becoming unbearable (no pun intended) on a laning trip around Suffolk. It was time to sort it out. I contacted my usual garage to see if they would give me a quote to do the work, because I just thought it was going to be a real pain to do. Despite contacting them twice, it seems that they didn’t want to go near it either, because they never quoted for the works. So, I just had to get on with it.
Now I wasn’t working on it night and day, but it took me a good couple of months of weekend working in the garden with the vehicle up on jack stands, as well as the jack, with copious amounts of penetrating fluid, heat, hitting, coaxing, praying, blood and crying before I finally managed to free the steering knuckle from the axle with a loud crack. What a joyous day that was. Just trying to remove the ABS sensor was extremely difficult; never in a month of Sunday’s was that just coming out by gently pulling it after removing the retaining bolt! However, in between all this coaxing, one of my mates decided to also have a bit of input and “help” me, which resulted in the top ball joint sustaining considerable damage under the rubber boot (as I found out later), meaning that now I also had to replace the top ball joint. That took me another two weeks of soaking, heating, and hitting before it finally came out like a gun shot. Happy days.
I took the knuckle with the old bearing to another local garage who said that they could push the old one out for me. They did get it out, but only by smashing the fe*k out of it with a large hammer, just next to the hydraulic press sat unused against the wall. They then proceeded to cut the remaining bearing off the hub with a grinder (it must be remembered that this is the original bearing and it’s obvious that one of the seals had failed resulting in water and muck penetrating into the part for quite some time, so everything was well and truly fused together). So at least the old bearing was out, in many pieces, and although the hub now had two grinder scars, everything was now separated.
Anyway, after spending a lot of time cleaning the old knuckle up and removing rust and stuff, trying to push a new top ball joint into the original knuckle was proving beyond my patience by this point; it was just not having it, and I was getting desperate to get the vehicle back on the road. Especially after watching the last Bond movie. After convincing myself that the surfaces of the rim of the knuckle where the new bearing seals would go were just pitted enough to ‘maybe’ let water in, I bit the bullet and just ordered a new knuckle from 'RoughTrax' which arrived promptly as usual complete with a new ball joint in place. During this time, I also ordered a new seal that sits at the end of the CV joint from 'Amayama' as it was prudent to do this at the same time. I decided not to go back to the helpful garage who smashed my old bearing out, but instead took the new bearing and knuckle to a helpful chap at 'ASV Tidworth' one Saturday morning, and he pushed the new bearing in for me while I waited. I got home and commenced putting it all back together again, which took about 4 hours with a tea break or two. I must say that I was an extremely happy chap when it was all finally done, re-taxed, and was able to take it out for a spin. Rumbling gone. Praise be to God.
All I can say is, what a bloody job that was. Highly recommended to anyone else who wants to have a go themselves; apparently, they call it character building. Cheers.
(sorry for the lack of photos, but there comes a point where one is just focused on the job)
 

Attachments

  • IMG_20211030_175520.jpg
    IMG_20211030_175520.jpg
    544.5 KB · Views: 55
  • IMG_20210906_191023.jpg
    IMG_20210906_191023.jpg
    354.4 KB · Views: 52
  • IMG_20210918_150713.jpg
    IMG_20210918_150713.jpg
    535.1 KB · Views: 59
  • IMG_20211113_105520.jpg
    IMG_20211113_105520.jpg
    385.2 KB · Views: 57
  • IMG_20211113_150456.jpg
    IMG_20211113_150456.jpg
    618.2 KB · Views: 54
Hi Bert,
Can you remember when you did this job what the torque was for the hub nut ?
I saw on a YouTube video it was 174 ft/lbs, does that sound right?
Mine came off easily so I don't think it was that tight !
 
Sounds about right, Haynes manual says 235nm for a 95 which is 174 ft/lb
 
Back
Top