So armed with new bearings £15 for both sides from my local parts place.
Bearing kit was
Inner larger bearing
Outer smaller bearing
Split pin
Grease pack
Inner grease seal
Basically all you need to do the job apart from tools
So what tools do you need
- 1lb hammer (essential)
- Screwdriver (to prise the hub cover off and the grease seal out)
- 3mm - 4mm pin punch (to knock the bearings out)
- 17mm socket and bar for the wheel bolts (or you can use the std wheel brace)
- long nose pliers (to get the plastic covers off the wheel bolts and undo the old split pin)
- 22mm Socket and breaker bar (for the Hub bolt)
- 2 bricks (safety first)
- Car jack (or you can use a trolley jack if you have one)
- Axle stand (or you can use the wheel you have removed)
- Some clean rag (to clean the old grease out of the drum)
Safety First – Chock both the front wheels and leave the car in first or reverse because to do the rear wheel bearings you are going to need to have the handbrake off.
Next we are ready to tackle the job
Remove plastic wheel bolt covers if fitted and while the wheel is on the ground – slightly loosen the wheel bolts (half a turn is plenty)
Next position a jack under an appropriate jacking point – you can use the jack supplied with the car but I had this one handy
Jack the car up and once jacked provide additional support by either an axle stand or use the wheel removed and push it under the car to provide a positive stop if the jack failed.
So now we have the wheel off we can start stripping down – remove the hub nut cover – gentle persuasion all the way round with a screwdriver should prise it out
Remove the split pin – bend the legs straight and then pull it out – DO NOT REUSE You get a new one in the bearing kit if you buy a decent make. Once the Split pin is removed you can remove the castilated nut cover and have free access to the hub nut.
Undo the nut and place in a safe place
Remove the washer and again place in a safe place – the whole Drum and bearings with it will now pull off…. If it doesn’t check you handbrake isn’t on (I did tell you not to leave it on!) Leaving just the stub and the inner workings of the drum brakes
Quick inspection of the brake shoes – should be lots of meat on them and no scoring – these were fine.
Check the drum for scoring on the inside where the pads work on the drum – these were fine and so we can get on with it…… Note the seal fitted to stop the brake dust contaminating the bearings and vica versa.
Prise the seal out with a screwdriver – just work your way round the edge
Remove the bearings from both sides of the drum….. they should fall out. This then presents you with the outer races still left in the hub.
OK so if you are thinking of a short cut at this point and just putting new inner races into the hub – greasing it up and slapping it back together – DO NOT DO THIS it is a false economy and the new bearings will only last a very short time.
Use a couple of bricks to lay the drum onto and using a pin punch and a nice large hammer knock the outer races out of the drum
Hammer not shown cos I only have two hands and one is holding the camera the other the pin punch
The hub is machined with some nice cut outs at 3 places round the edge of the race – this means it’s easy to get a good tap on a ncie wide area of the bearing race – work progressively round – bit at each position at a time and it should gradually drop down until it falls out. Drum with outer race removed.
Repeat this with the other outer race and then once cleaned up – all the old grease removed we can start putting it back together.
The old outer races are ideal for knocking in the new ones as they are a perfect fit
Once one side is fitted turn over and repeat the process with the other side
Once fitted it should look like this
Fit the new inner race – with copius quantities of grease (good kits come with exactly the right amount of grease so use a ¼ of the sachet to do a bearing)
Fit the new grease seal behind the bearing – tap it in gently
Invert the hub and using ½ the greased supplied in the sachet to fill the void between the two bearings and the remaining grease to cover the outer bearing then place the drum back on the stub axle
Replace the washer and nut back onto the stub axle and tighten up – A good tip is here to tighten the nut up until the drum will not turn and leave for a min – if you haven’t knocked the outer races in properly this will seat them properly.
Loosen again until the drum spins again without any effort to turn it.
Tighten either with a pair of pliers to limit the ammount of torque you can apply
or
tighten to a point where with a small screwdriver you can still move the washer behind the nut from side to side
Refit the castilated nut cover and then use the new split pin to stop it all coming loose.
Re-fit the wheel and double check that you can’t feel any play in the hub bearing by grabbing the wheel on two opposite sides and trying to push with one hand and pull with the other and quickly reversing the push and pull – this rocking action will show up any play in the bearing – if there is then sorry but strip it back down again and tighten it up a bit more.
Drop the car back down – torque the wheel bolst up to the correct torque and refit the wheel bolt covers.
Job done – just the other side to do now.
