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Rear wheel bearing

Larryjb

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2008 Ford Explorer
I don't see much about replacing rear wheel bearings. Be forewarned, it's no fun removing the knuckle in your driveway.

The toe link, upper arm, and lower arm must be removed, as well as the three hub bolts. The hub bolts were filled with locktite and I could not remove them with my home air impact. Perhaps if I had a 240V compressor I could have an impact driver that would remove these. I ended up having to use a 5 foot extension on one of them to break it loose. Backing them out took my long 1/2" ratchet almost the whole way before I could switch to my short ratchet.

And now, there is hardly a single shop in town that has time to press a bearing. Of course, and this is my fault, I discovered at the end that Rockauto shipped the wrong bearing. It's my fault because I didn't check the part closely enough before taking apart my truck. Now I have to put an old hub/bearing assembly back in until I can get the correct bearing delivered.

Loads of fun here.

But, my main point is that you will need a good selection of various 1/2" ratchet extensions, perhaps including a pipe to go on the end of one.
 



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It's not a fun job.
If your impact had trouble it isn't because of your compressor - it's just a weak impact. If your compressor is fully charged when you hit the bolt - then all things are equal. You could use a pancake compressor you would just have to wait a lot for it to recharge.
I have a barely capable impact gun - last rear bearing I did I discovered that I am unable to break things loose if I include an extension in the mix. Remove the extension, things came loose. It makes sense really - the extension adds slop and with a less than stellar gun then that can mean the difference between breaking it loose or failing.
You forgot to mention how you had to also remove the parking brake cable and the parking brake shoes. That, in and of itself, is a job that also generates a number of expletives.
I'm lucky that I have a shop less than a half mile away that charges me $20 to press the old bearing out and press the new bearing and hub in. Unfortunately, the last one they did they really bent up my backing plate and that caused me a lot of extra time and labor putting things back together.
 






Sorry to hear that Larry,
I have a 26 gal, 110v compressor, and HF gun and it helped a lot with those 24mm bolts.
A while ago I got 2 rear knuckles, L and R from a junkyard for very little money, replaced the bearings and have them in my shed ready to go.

I know that's kind of extreme approach, but compared to a total cost of a job at a shop, I am still ahead.
 






I realize that I could use a higher torque rated impact, but it would use so much air that I'd be forever waiting for it to fill. Really, this was the first bolt I couldn't get with my impact. I've done exhaust flange bolts just fine.
Parking brake shoes are easy to deal with. Pry the shoes away from the parking lever, then push the lever back through the backing plate.

Unfortunately, there wasn't room for me to get my ratchets or air tools onto the hub bolts without extensions.

I'll have to put the old hub back until the proper bearing arrives next week.
 






I've gotta do this sometime, hopefully I can get by till spring.

Some of these posts scare me lol.

Thankfully I have the '98 to drive if the 06 has to sit for a weekend or three.

I don't do shops, unless it's for alignments. Anything mechanical, I fix myself or else it's off to that great wrecking yard in the sky for the vehicle.

Exceptions being alignments as above, trans rebuilds, and paint. So far, never had a vehicle painted....
 






Here's how I deal with the parking brake:

IMG_20190929_163542.jpg
Easy to do.
 






So when you take the knuckle somewhere to have the bearing pressed you leave the parking brake components attached to the knuckle? I always assumed that they would get in the way and removed everything before I had it pressed.
 






I'm only showing the method to remove the parking brake. From the picture, you push the parking brake lever through and out the back of the knuckle. No need to remove any other brake hardware unless you are servicing the parking brake.
 






Interesting - I'm always open to new ways to do things. I just went ahead and replaced the shoes when I did my first rear bearing - did the other side as well. I pulled all the new parking brake hardware when I did the other side a few months later thinking they couldn't press with it there due to the irregular shape of the knuckle. If I have to do rears again I'll reconsider.
 












I got my wheel bearing in today. The bearing can be pressed out and in keeping the parking brake shoes in, but you risk warping the backing plate. I just bent it back, but I may remove the brake hardware next time.
 






I pulled apart the old rear bearing itself. The rollers are held in a nylon retainer. The grease was not in great shape, but I also noticed that the nylon retainer had started to break apart. I don't know if the nylon was breaking apart because the bearing was overheating and failing, or if the bearing was failing because the nylon broke apart. Either scenario is entirely possible.
 






One more thought here. I considered the damage of the roller cage. I'll try to post a picture later, but I'm hoping I can learn from this failure to try to prevent premature failure. I learned two interesting things tonight from the following article from Timken:
https://www.timken.com/pdf/5892_Bearing Damage Analysis Brochure.pdf

On p. 14, you will find a description of a bearing failure involving cage damage. This particular failure is caused by excessive endplay. Does this mean I could prevent premature failure by checking the axle nut torque twice each year? (Easily done each time I switch between snows and all seasons.)

On p. 25 you will find a water test. Remove some grease and heat it up. If it splatters, water got into the bearing.

I haven't had a chance to examine the rollers in detail, or the race. But if checking the torque each year helps prevent bearing failure, that's pretty simple to do.
 






Interesting information, I will try to read it in depth later. I think a lot of it has to do with manufacturing variations between bearings. My 13-year-old Explorer with 150,000 miles is still running on one of its original rear bearings in complete silence. No grease inspection or axle nut torque checks.
 






Larry -

I am doing same job on both rear bearings for my fiend on his 03. I pressed everything apart (I'll start a new thread how it went ) and pressed everything back and I think I am ready to bolt the knuckles back.
But my question is: how deep do you drive the hub into the bearing ?
I had a flat solid ring supporting the entire bearing including the inner race while pressing in the hub, but after i took it off the press, the bottom of the hub is still about 1/8 inch recessed in reference to the bottom of the bearing. How do you drive it to flush with the bearing ? Or maybe that's enough ?

I am afraid that if it's not flushed with the bearing face, the axle nut will pull it a little in and create unnecessary lateral stress which may cause premature failure.

Am I making sense ?
 






A buddy of mine helped me press the new bearing in. We used a manual press like this one:

Magnum FMC-AT501B 19pc Front Wheel Drive Bearing Kit - KMS Tools

As we pressed the new bearing in, we had to use a combination of pressing using the impact on the nut (of the press), then tapping with a sledge. If the nut loosened as we tapped it in, we knew the bearing had not yet seated. We continued repeatedly pressing and tapping while the bearing was under pressure from the press until taps would not cause the bearing to seat any further. At this point, the retainer ring (or snap ring) fit into the knuckle quite nicely.

I do plan to recheck the torque on the axle nut when I change to my snows just in case driving along with the pressure supplied by the axle nut has caused the bearing to seat further.

I'm assuming that the 03 also had a snap ring in the back of the knuckle. I don't think I would have been able to install this snap ring unless the bearing was seated properly.

---------------------

As I reread your question, it occurred to me that you weren't sure if the bearing was seated in the hub yet. This would be a step before pressing the hub/bearing into the knuckle. We used the same procedure as before. We applied tension to the press, then tapped the nut and observed what happened to the tension of the press. This was quite easy to sense using the manual press (linked above) because you'd have a crescent wrench on one end, the impact on the other. I was able to move the nut by hand after taps with the sledge, so we tightened with the impact again, then tapped the nut. This process was repeated until there taps on the nut with the sledge didn't loosen the nut.

In case anyone is worried about the taps with the sledge damaging the bearing, we weren't taking full force swings with the sledge. Just enough to move the bearing while under pressure. And, of course like you, we used appropriate disks to ensure pressure was applied to the appropriate race.
 






Thanks Larry, interesting point about tapping as you press.

Yes, first I pressed the bearing into the knuckle until it stopped on the outer lip of the opening. Installed the snap ring.

Then part 2:

pressing the hub into the bearing while supporting the inner race of the bearing.
The hub is in, but when you look from the backside of the knuckle assembly, did the end of the hub flush with the back plane of the bearing ?
 






I'm sorry, I can't remember if it was flush or not. I think it was close, but I'm not sure how close. I just remember that it would loosen up slightly as we tapped it under pressure from the press. I don't know how easily I see it using a hydraulic press. You can feel it loosen up as it seats , even if it moves another few thousands because the nut loosens.

At about 8:45 in the video I linked from post #10 you can see the bearing at the back of the hub. That might be useful for you.
 






Ha, thanks for pointing me to that video and time point, that's what I needed.
You can see the hub is not all the way in same as mine.
 



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