Driver side rear wheel bearing needs replacement, anyone do this job yet? The bearing needs to be pressed out, I have access to a press and various fittings. Searching the forums, it seems pretty straightforward.

I can only find a Timken bearing without the hub. Is it safe to reuse the existing hub? Any way to diagnose jaw if the hub is bad too?

 

Yes, pressed in and not a hard job at all with a good press and you will never fund a bearing with the hub installed because they go in separately. You may be able to use the old hub if you can separate it from the bearing but good luck with that. I used new ones but hubs don't go bad, stye are just a chunk of metal with wheel studs.. And DO NOT FORGET TO REMOVE THE CIRCLIP before removing the bearing. I recommend getting new brake splash shield if bad because they go on before the hub is installed. And make sure you have some good adapter/sockets that can drive in the bearing and drive the hub without damaging the bearing.

 

I've done this job with my 12 ton Hazard Fraught press. Supporting the hub so you don't trash the brake shield is probably the trickiest part.
press the outside of the bearing, not the hub...I like to use the shell of the old bearing.

 

Started tackling this job last week. I’ve got the driver side hub/bearing removed and pressed no problem. I used a hub puller to remove the hub from the bearing. As expected the bearing just split in half and had to cut off the lower portion of the bearing off the hub.

the knuckle casting must be a little off on the passenger side because I can’t keep the puller perpendicular and it’s not separating the bearing and hub. I can’t figure out how to support the knuckle on the press without destroying the brake dust shield in order to press the hub out of the bearing.

anyone have any photos on how to support the knuckle in the press?

 

unfortunately it's been a few years and I can't recall exactly how I accomplished the pressing, but I do recall it was the longest part of the job. It was mostly scraps and stuff scrounhged out of the garage

 

Finished the job…seemed to keep running into hiccups. The passenger side hub was seized so bad to the bearing that I ended up pressing the bearing against the retaining spring clip and partially unseating it into a cone shape. I was able to flatten it and reuse the clip, thank goodness.

reassambly went smooth for the driver side, but when I pressed the hub into the bearing, the bearing split in half. Luckily it didn’t look like anything was broken and I pressed the bearing back together and onto the hub.

before removing the knuckle assembly I marked the upper camber bolts so I could put them back in the same position. However, I couldn’t get my markings to align. Upon further inspection,
it looks like the alignment shop over rotated the camber bolts and partially deformed the slotted hole in the upper control arm. I ended up getting it as close as I could…we’ll see how bad the alignment is off.

went through Bosby’s brake bible procedure for installing and calibrating the parking brake. Still getting g some intermittent parking brake rubbing noise on the rear passenger side.

 

If the bearing split, it is done for. I certainly would not trust it. Rubbing could be from bad parking shoes. The aftermarkets have a bad design that can sometimes drag a bit. About 4 minutes in they go over this issue. With that said, it could be an install issue too as they are tricky to get right and easy to mess up.

 

Were you pressing on the hub of the new bearings or the outer race? I don't see how you'd split it pressing the outer race and yaeh, iif it split you might as well replace it again.
I like to use use the outer race to press the new bearing into the hub, so I don't press against the inner race as that will damage the new bearing. Doing so can dimple the race and flatten the ***** and lead to early failure. Oh and pressing that hub into the bearing was a hoot.

 

I placed the knuckle with the inside face down (side that the half shaft enters), pressed the bearing into the knuckle, added the snap ring, pressed the hub.

the knuckle supports the outside ring of the bearing. However nothing was supporting the inner ring of the bearing. The inner bearing pushed through with the hub.

based on how the the half shaft and axel bolt squeeze the bearing (260ft/lbs) I’m not concerned with the bearing staying together. The only possible damage could be to the internal seals/plastic piece that holds the bearings not coming together correctly when I pressed it back together.

ill let you know how long it lasts. For the moment it seems to be fine…less than 100 miles.

 

Also, I’ve got Duralast pads…the shoes extend the full length of the backing plate. I might try and just back off the adjuster a few more clicks to see if that helps