Rear Wheel Bearing Replacement

If you hear funny sounds from the rear of the car, and cannot see where the noise is coming from, you may have a rear wheel bearing failure like I did. Hopefully you don't! This was caused by the nut on the hub being finger tight, rather than the recommended 213 ft-lbs.

To install a new rear wheel bearing yourself, you need a lot of patience, 2 breaker bars or long wrenches, snap ring removal tool, air-gun is helpful, assorted metric sockets, wrenches, a large hammer, screwdriver, 14mm allen socket, 10mm allen socket, and a nearby shop that is willing to press the old bearings out of the housing, and press the new ones in.

For parts, you will need new wheel bearings, the inner and outer oil seal. If the Hub is bad, you will need a new Hub as well.

Begin by jacking up the rear of the car, and removing the rear tire.

Remove the cotter pin in the end of the hub, and remove the funny looking nut cover. Remove the Hub Nut. This is where an air gun comes in handy. Otherwise you may need to have someone press on the brakes while you remove the hub nut. Now go under the car and remove the 6 bolts holding the drive axle to the differential. You will need a 10mm metric allen socket. Then push the axle towards the wheel, and pull the axle out of the differential.

Remove the 2 bolts on the back of the brake caliper, and slide the caliper off. Make sure the parking brake is off, so the disk can be removed. Try to pull the disk off. If it cannot be pulled off earily, get two small long metric bolts and screw them into the little holes in the brake disk until the brake disk comes off.

Now unhook, unbolt and remove the parking brake shoes.

Now the fun part. Remove all the bolts holding the housing in the car. I used a large breaker bar and jumped on the end of it to get them free. Once the nuts were off, I carefully used a hammer to separate the ball joints from the housing. Note: I did not remove any other suspension bolts, other than the ones on the housing.

Now disconnect the parking brake cable from the housing, and remove the housing from the car.  

Notice how the diameter increases about one inch down the shaft. It should be the same all the way down.

Now pull the seal out of both ends of the housing, and remove the metal edge. Use a snap ring remover, and remove the snap ring from the other end.

Take the housing to the shop and have the old bearings pressed out, (and the Hub if you can't get it out), and have the new bearings pressed in. (Do not have the Hub pressed back in yet!)

Before you put the hub back into the housing, mount the brake guard back on the Hub with the big allen bolt. Also... Put the snap ring back in, and put a new seal in both the front and back ends.

Now put the Hub back in. I used some blocks of wood, and a sledge hammer to pound the Hub into the Housing. Then add the metal lip back to the inner side of the housing.

Now install everything in the reverse order.

By  Chris Bergemann