Jim Henderson
Dedicated LVC Member
This weekend I finally got around to changing my Front drivers side wheelhub/bearing. I am soooo lucky I live in Southern California. NO RUST BABY!!.
I have been dreading this job for ages since I read all the other postings where people have to pound/ torch sweat the hub out or take it to a shop or do various tricks. Mine just fell out when the bolts were removed. The passenger side hub was replaced under warranty at about 50,000miles. This hub was replaced this past weekend at 110,000.
Below hopefully in some order are pictures.
I used a 12mm socket to remove the caliper bolts, and a 15mm socket to remove the 4 wheel hub bolts and the two caliper mounting frame bolts. These take a fair amount of muscle but that was the hardest part of the job.
1) Remove the tire and wheel, duh.
2) Remove the caliper, 12mm. Remove the Caliper frame, 15mm. Then remove the rotor. There may be some serrated lock washers holding the rotor in place. Use needle nose or flat screwdriver to turn them out.
3) Remove the 4 Hub retaining bolts, 15mm. Grunt work. You might need to turn the steering wheel to get at all of them. Remove teh 2 15mm bolts that hold the frame of the calipers. Grunt work.
4) If you are lucky, the hub will fall out at this point. You will need to remove the plastic Wheel well to get at the ABS connector on the wheel well sheet metal.
5)Clean the area where the hub will sit. I used a paper towel and WD40.
6) Use Anti sieze on the mounting surfaces of the hub and the shoulders of the 4 retaining bolts. Use some Blue locktite on the threads. Don't put any antisieze in the bolt holes since that will slop over onto the bolt threads.
Put the hub in place and torque to spec, it's somewhere on our website. I just used heavy hand tension with a 1/2 inch ratchet handle. Wild guess is torque is about 60 to maybe 80 foot pounds.
This job was 10,000% easier than I feared. IF YOU LIVE IN A RUST FREE AREA, it will probably take you about 3 hours if you take it easy. The 6 bolts are the hardest part of the job due to requiring some muscle to break them loose and limited space for a long breaker bar. If you can do disc brakes, you can do this job, if things don't get stuck, then it becomes a brute strenght type job.
Some Ideas about how to get the hubs out if they were stuck...
I liked the one guys idea about using severl bolts and nuts in the hub holes to act like an internal pulley pusher.
But I am lazy so some ideas which I never got to use might work for you...
If you have an old beater rotor, you could mount that back on the hub studs after removing the caliper and caliper mount etc. Use some lug nuts to tighten the beater rotor in place and then... beat on it with the tool of your choice. Alternatively use your good rotor but use a rubber mallet or duct tape some thin pieces of plywood on the rotors to beat on.
Alternatively, I was also thinking maybe just remounting the tire and whell bacl onto the hub and using it as a big handle to yank the hub back and forth might work.
Hopefully I will never use these ideas, but I think they would work and best of all for me, they are free.
Below are pics...
Hope this helps,
Jim Henderson
Picture notes... I got to figure out how to add them with the pics...
First pic is the raybestos box with the new wheel hub deliverd by JC Whitney.
Only heart break is the box has small print... Made in China. Is nothing sacred anymore??!!
Next pic Plastic wheel well splash shield removed to get access to the ABS connector. it will require a slight finger pressure on the tab to release the connector lock. BTW, you can also see the fuel filter for future reference. There are about 5 plastic quick fasteners. just pull out the center bullseye and then pry the big plastic donut out. There is 1 Phillips screw at the bottom of the wheel well that also needs to be removed.
Next pic shows how the hub just fell loose after I losened the fourth and last reatinging bolt. Note the clean metal surface shown in the gap. No rust in California, "It never Rains in California..."
Next is new hub left, old hub right. Other than a bit of dust the old hub looks fine. It does make a kind of grumbling sound when you turn it, but it was not loose, no wobble nothing when I was working on it. Just a loud humm, my son said it sounded like a B17 bomber on a mission. Also in the background you can see the Caliper mounting frame that needs to be removed in order to remove the rotor etc.
Next is the mounting hole before cleaning. No RUST, yeehaw.
Next is the mounting after celaning with WD40 on a paper towel. If yours is rusty you should wire wheel or use sand paper to clean out the hole. DO NOT make the hole bigger, duh.
Next picture, you're gonne need plenty of this stuff to keep the hub from sticking in the future. I applied to the monting hole and the front surface. Also applied to the surfaces on the hub mount and arount the "beltline" of the hub. A little on the shoulders of the 4 hub bolts.
Next picture shows hub and mount and bolts with Antisieze as described above and a dab of blue locktite on the bolt threads.
That's all folks.
I have been dreading this job for ages since I read all the other postings where people have to pound/ torch sweat the hub out or take it to a shop or do various tricks. Mine just fell out when the bolts were removed. The passenger side hub was replaced under warranty at about 50,000miles. This hub was replaced this past weekend at 110,000.
Below hopefully in some order are pictures.
I used a 12mm socket to remove the caliper bolts, and a 15mm socket to remove the 4 wheel hub bolts and the two caliper mounting frame bolts. These take a fair amount of muscle but that was the hardest part of the job.
1) Remove the tire and wheel, duh.
2) Remove the caliper, 12mm. Remove the Caliper frame, 15mm. Then remove the rotor. There may be some serrated lock washers holding the rotor in place. Use needle nose or flat screwdriver to turn them out.
3) Remove the 4 Hub retaining bolts, 15mm. Grunt work. You might need to turn the steering wheel to get at all of them. Remove teh 2 15mm bolts that hold the frame of the calipers. Grunt work.
4) If you are lucky, the hub will fall out at this point. You will need to remove the plastic Wheel well to get at the ABS connector on the wheel well sheet metal.
5)Clean the area where the hub will sit. I used a paper towel and WD40.
6) Use Anti sieze on the mounting surfaces of the hub and the shoulders of the 4 retaining bolts. Use some Blue locktite on the threads. Don't put any antisieze in the bolt holes since that will slop over onto the bolt threads.
Put the hub in place and torque to spec, it's somewhere on our website. I just used heavy hand tension with a 1/2 inch ratchet handle. Wild guess is torque is about 60 to maybe 80 foot pounds.
This job was 10,000% easier than I feared. IF YOU LIVE IN A RUST FREE AREA, it will probably take you about 3 hours if you take it easy. The 6 bolts are the hardest part of the job due to requiring some muscle to break them loose and limited space for a long breaker bar. If you can do disc brakes, you can do this job, if things don't get stuck, then it becomes a brute strenght type job.
Some Ideas about how to get the hubs out if they were stuck...
I liked the one guys idea about using severl bolts and nuts in the hub holes to act like an internal pulley pusher.
But I am lazy so some ideas which I never got to use might work for you...
If you have an old beater rotor, you could mount that back on the hub studs after removing the caliper and caliper mount etc. Use some lug nuts to tighten the beater rotor in place and then... beat on it with the tool of your choice. Alternatively use your good rotor but use a rubber mallet or duct tape some thin pieces of plywood on the rotors to beat on.
Alternatively, I was also thinking maybe just remounting the tire and whell bacl onto the hub and using it as a big handle to yank the hub back and forth might work.
Hopefully I will never use these ideas, but I think they would work and best of all for me, they are free.
Below are pics...
Hope this helps,
Jim Henderson
Picture notes... I got to figure out how to add them with the pics...
First pic is the raybestos box with the new wheel hub deliverd by JC Whitney.
Only heart break is the box has small print... Made in China. Is nothing sacred anymore??!!
Next pic Plastic wheel well splash shield removed to get access to the ABS connector. it will require a slight finger pressure on the tab to release the connector lock. BTW, you can also see the fuel filter for future reference. There are about 5 plastic quick fasteners. just pull out the center bullseye and then pry the big plastic donut out. There is 1 Phillips screw at the bottom of the wheel well that also needs to be removed.
Next pic shows how the hub just fell loose after I losened the fourth and last reatinging bolt. Note the clean metal surface shown in the gap. No rust in California, "It never Rains in California..."
Next is new hub left, old hub right. Other than a bit of dust the old hub looks fine. It does make a kind of grumbling sound when you turn it, but it was not loose, no wobble nothing when I was working on it. Just a loud humm, my son said it sounded like a B17 bomber on a mission. Also in the background you can see the Caliper mounting frame that needs to be removed in order to remove the rotor etc.
Next is the mounting hole before cleaning. No RUST, yeehaw.
Next is the mounting after celaning with WD40 on a paper towel. If yours is rusty you should wire wheel or use sand paper to clean out the hole. DO NOT make the hole bigger, duh.
Next picture, you're gonne need plenty of this stuff to keep the hub from sticking in the future. I applied to the monting hole and the front surface. Also applied to the surfaces on the hub mount and arount the "beltline" of the hub. A little on the shoulders of the 4 hub bolts.
Next picture shows hub and mount and bolts with Antisieze as described above and a dab of blue locktite on the bolt threads.
That's all folks.
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