Hit a Curb - Self Diagnosis & How I replaced my Front Wheel Bearing / Hub

I hit a curb and used Google and LGT forums to diagnose all of my problems. Here's what I found:

 

Wheel -

 

• Symptoms: Bent & mangled
  
• Diagnosis: Look at it. It's not round anymore.
  
• Damage: Obviously unusable and unrepairable
  
• Fix: Replace
  

Wheel Bearing -

 

• Symptoms: "Wha wha wha" sound at 40+ MPH. Also described as a whining noise, a pulsating sound, a pulsing vibration sound.
  
• Diagnosis: Very slight play in the HUB. I took off the wheel and held the HUB (what the wheel attaches to). I rocked it back and forth holding it at 12 and 6. It moved very slightly. When I compared it to the undamaged side, I could tell there was a problem.
  
• Damage: Bad wheel bearing.
  
• Fix: Replace
  

Ball Joint -

 

• Symptoms: a "clicking" or "popping" sound when accelerating quickly, braking quickly, or turning. (This sound could mean many things, but in this case in was the ball joint)
  
• Diagnosis: I just guessed. After replacement, it went away.
  
• Damage: Bad ball joint
  
• Fix: Replace
  

 

 

How I Replaced My Front Wheel Bearing:

 

I used instructions from:

http://www.legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php?t=86994

 

A big thank you to derffred for the original walkthrough. I have adapted it to my experience with replacement

 

 

Replacement (took me about 2.5 hours using jack stands & hand tools):

 

1. Look behind the wheel where your axle slides in the hub and you'll see 4- 14MM bolts in a tapered square pattern. Make sure your socket can reach those bolts before you start working. Sometimes part of the axle gets in the way. Line it up so you don’t have to take it off ¼ turn at a time, like I did .
   
2. Raise the vehicle
   
3. Remove your front wheel (5- 19MM nuts),
   
4. Loosen/remove axle nut (1- 32MM nut) BEFORE taking off brakes. You may need a friend to hold the brakes in order for you to loosen the axle nut.
   
5. Take a screwdriver and softly pry between your brake pad and your rotor to compress your brake caliper to the point of where it can easily slide off.
   
6. Remove your brake caliper (2- 14MM bolts)
   
7. Remove your caliper bracket (2- 17MM bolts) and remove your rotor. You can use two M8 bolts in your OEM rotors to "press" your rusty rotor off the hub.
   
8. Look behind and you'll see a sensor going through the spindle near the axle, that's your wheel speed sensor and you should remove it so you don't damage it when replacing the wheel bearing (1- 10MM bolt).
   
9. Remove the 4- 14MM bolts that hold your hub to the steering knuckle.
   
10. Now the hard part: Taking off the hub
    
    1. 
       
    2. The goal is to pull the hub straight off of the knuckle & axle.
       
    3. When you pull or hammer on the hub, you don’t want to pull the axle out too.
       
    4. There are a couple pullers out there that work for this, but here’s how I did it:
       
    5. Attach the spare tire to the hub using the lug nuts (just hand tight)
       
    6. Grab a friend.
       
    7. While applying outward pressure to the wheel, softly hammer the axle inward
       
    8. Upon each impact, the axle should slight in while the hub slides out.
       
    9. Do this until the hub separates from the axle and knuckle
       

 

[*]Once it's off, you'll have to swap over your backing plate (sits between the hub and the spindle)

[*]Clean all the rust and dirt inside where the bearing race sits, use a silicon lubricant to coat the surface and evenly tighten the hub bolts.

[*]Reinstall everything, have a friend hold the brakes when you tighten the axle nut, triple check your work, and don't forget to pump your brakes before you start driving!

Also see the vacation pics: DS-17. These are very helpful!

Thanks for the write up. I hope to do this by next weekend when I get the part. A local part store rents out the puller for free with deposit so I'll try to give that a shot.

I hope it works out for you.

 

FYI - I still have a vibration in the front passengers side. I think the rotor might be bent, but I am not sure. I replaced my wheel, wheel bearing, and ball joint. They

 

Does anyone have any ideas?

One thing i'd recommend is to ALWAYS loosen the axlenut while the car is on the ground. One it's much easier and two it's much safer.

 

-Luke

The axle nut has a little divit/bend along the edge. Do I need to bend that out before loosening or just go ahead and loosen?

Nevermind... found it.

What did you find? That you just go ahead and loosen it or did you bend it out?

 

i have a noise that sounds like uneven tire wear that is loudest BELOW 40 mph, NOT above 40 mph like everyone says. Could this still be the bearing? Already tried rotating wheels and the tire wear is even all around.

My noise wasn't the wheel bearings after all. after bringing it in, they found 3 transfer gear bearings that were worn/noisy.