Need advice on front wheel hub replacement

Sounds like a wise way to do it if it's your own car and you don't mind doing more work in the future... Nice thing about a bad wheel hub is that it'll let you know it's gonna fail long before it actually fails.

 

I did the hubs on our old blue 2005. I used Timken. They seemed like a nice assembly to me.
I borrowed a puller/slide hammer from AutoZone. It was a bit of a pain, but after reviewing the work, I think the difficulty comes into play getting the old one out due to the hub cocking, not due to any white corrosion that's present on the aluminum. The four mounting bolts for the hub are not equally spaced. This results in the hub puller not being perfectly aligned to the center axis of the hub. Of course, this results in the hub not being pulled straight out. Just something to be aware of. I was able to swap the hubs without removing the knuckle, but many procedures have you just remove the whole knuckle and press the hub out. This can require an alignment afterward. No alignment needed if you just yank out the hubs.

Also be aware you will probably want to get two new spindle nuts ahead of time. You have to be careful when removing them, as the nut gets staked during installation to keep it from loosening. If you do not "unstake" it enough, you will damage the spindle threads when you rotate the nut. Personally, I used a Dremel tool with a cutting wheel to grind the staked area clear. The nut came off perfect with zero damage. New nuts went on perfect also.

If this was something I did more often, I would make a custom hub puller tool to have proper alignment. I think it would make all the difference in the world for this job.

 

A small sledgehammer, air chisel, and 30min are all I needed to extract the old hub. If you can get the slightest gap between the hub and knuckle it's over really fast with an air chisel. I went with the OEM Koyo hub.

 

I just replaced all four wheel bearings on mine and a couple on my wife's this summer. Pretty sure, where I live, it is the corrosion that makes them really difficult to get out. The first one I did a few years ago, I wasted a couple of hours trying to leave the steering knuckle on. I ended up having to take the knuckle off anyway. I have seen a mechanic do one on my wife's car with an air chisel but it took him a long time with a lot of swearing, and he wrecked the splash guard. If you have the knuckle off the car, a sledge hammer will blast the hub out of the knuckle pretty easily. My 4 ton press would not budge it.

If you live in an area with rust I would not recommend trying to take the ABS sensor off the knuckle. The bolt for the sensor is really soft and will snap off very easily. I learned this the hard way. Now I unplug the sensor at the other end from under the wheel skirt and take it off with the knuckle.

Our cars are on their third set of front bearings and I have used SKF, Toyota, and Koyo. Until recently they all seemed to be sourced from Koyo and last about 130000 km before they start to howl. SKF is all over the place now. I got two this summer that were made in China and looked fake. I did check with SKF and they said they were fine. Another SKF bearing I got for the rear was made by NSK. So you really don't know what you are going to get.

 

Do you some sort of grease when installing replacement bearings, in the cavity they push into, and does that help much, with subsequent removal?

 

Yes I use the silver anti-seize, but I am not sure if it helps because I have not replaced any of those bearings yet. When the cars were newer the dealer replaced the first 2 or 3 until I got tired of paying 600 bucks a bearing. They were not kind enough to use anti-seize.

 

Removal or installation? A quality impact wrench will take the nut off without fussing with the stake. On installation use a center punch or chisel to stake it.

 

After which it would be an excellent idea to also replace the axle.

 

Yeah take the time and unstake the nut. I've see dealerships (Honda) reuse the nut: nut was back on, rotated slightly further, staked in a slightly shifted location. Probably overtorqued too?

 

I've done it, no effect on the axle. Are you just speculating?

 

No, I'm reading the repair manual, is all.



That was from a Gen 3 manual, but you should be able to find the similar passage in yours.

If the spindle threads take damage, bets are off as to how well the next nut will hold after reassembly.

Some repair techniques can create known risks and still cause "no problem" much of the time, leading people to report having used the techniques with "no problem." But when a warning about the technique makes it into the manual, generally it has caused somebody a problem.

 

Ok cool, thanks for the reference. I'd do it again, unless the stake was set unnecessarily deep. Softer metal of the nut versus hardened axle.

 

In a pinch a Roberts Head screw driver looks like it'd work for the unstaking?

 

I am wondering why the procedure says not to use an impact wrench. I would expect to use an impact wrench to loosen the nut after it is unstaked.

 

Maybe they're thinking use of an impact wrench will "mask" the condition of a nut only partially unstaked?

Just musing: castle nut and cotter pin would be another design option for the manufacturers, though not infinitely variable.