Rear Wheel Bearing Installation Advice

[s4simon]

Rear bearings been on the way out for some time now. I have the new babies in front of me. Question is - Is it an easy job or is a specialist required. Any special bearing tools required ??. I've been through the manual and there does not seem to be much to it - just don't want to end up with broken bits.

Edited April 23, 2008 by s4simon

[lotus4s]

Rear bearings been on the way out for some time now. I have the new babies in front of me. Question is - Is it an easy job or is a specialist required. Any special bearing tools required ??. I've been through the manual and there does not seem to be much to it - just don't want to end up with broken bits.

Special tools=BF breaker bar (big farking)with maybe a piece of pipe extension to break the nut loose and it wouldn't hurt to have a helper to apply the brakes in addition to the parking brake. Then you'll need a hydraulic press with a proper splitter plate and a big torque wrench that will torque to 270nm to put it back together. Other than that it's pretty simple. Just the usual hassle of dealing with bolts/nuts that might be siezed like the lower link stud.

Good luck!

[rogerch]

And don't jack the car up until the nuts are loose!

[Malc Holmes]

.... Just the usual hassle of dealing with bolts/nuts that might be siezed like the lower link stud.

You dont need to get the rear upright off the car if you remove the hub unit from the rear upright. The risk of damage to the rear upright, the notorious cracking of the bottom webs, is well worth avoiding if at all possible.

Removing the hub should be the easiest way of doing it, but a few the socket head bolts are often seized in place and round off you allen key before coming out. I have ground the heads off these in the past with a dremel type tool and then removed the remaining threaded stud from the upright once the hub is out of the way (they have come out easily once the tension is off them!). Beware, the bolts are M7, an unusual size, so get news before you damage the old ones in the process of removal.

Once the hub is off I nrmally pass the assembly plus a new bearing over to a local tool shop who has a press (which I dont have) to get the old bearing out and new one in. Not expensive and quite straightforward.

Malc