- Jack
- Jack stand
- 1/2" socket wrench and/or breaker bar
- 3/8" socket wrench and extension
- T30 torx bit
- 12mm triple square
- 17mm allen bit, 1/2" drive (a few inches long as pictured)(do not buy an allen key, the axle bolt has to be torqued into place)
- 13/16" socket (or equivelant metric size)
- Hanger wire
- Penetrating oil
- Locktite
- Work light?
The bearing itself can be purchased at JHM Motorsports, here's the direct link - http://www.jhmotorsports.com/shop/ca...roducts_id=323
Here's what you get:
1.) You need to crack the axle bolt loose and you can either have the car on the ground and do it, or get the tired off and have someone step on the brake pedal to keep the hub from spinning. So I jacked up the car, took the wheel off, popped the center cap off, put the wheel back on with two bolts, put it back on the ground partially, put the allen in and crack it loose, get it back up in the air and take the wheel back off.
2.) You need to remove the caliper and rotor so start by taking the brake pad sensor wire connector off, then take the ABS sensor wire out of its rubber grommet bracket, then remove the caliper bracket (and caliper) which bolts to the knuckle with two large bolts, I used a 13/16" socket which fit perfectly, I didn't have a big enough metric socket, it's got to be about 21mm. Once the caliper is off, I used a thick coat hanger wire to tie the caliper up out of the way, hanging by the tie rod. Make sure not to kink the brake line or pull on any wires if you left them attached.
Bolts out -
3.) Remove the rotor. The chance that this T30 torx bolt is on your car is about 50/50 depending on who replaced your rotors last, but it shouldn't be too bad to remove. If yours is really tight, spray it with some penetrating fluid. If the rotor won't come off easily, take a hammer and firmly hit the area around where the wheel bolts go, sometimes rust causes the rotor to bond to the hub mounting surface. If you can, spray some penetrating oil from behind the rotor into that area.
4.) Remove the splash guard. There are 4 T30 bolts, should come right out.
5.) Take a 3/8" extension rod (or similar) and GENTLY tap the axle out of the hub in the area seen, the axle only goes partially into the hub so you have to gently hit the end of the axle as pictured. It does NOT take a lot of force so don't whip out your sledge, I only just tapped it a few times with my hammer to get it out.
Here's the reverse angle, the axle is mostly out, NOTE, the axle WILL NOT COME ALL THE WAY OUT OF THE HUB, there isn't enough play in the axle CV joints at either end to allow it to come all the way out of your way, unfortunately. But don't worry about it, you can work around it. You can also see 3 of the 4 triple square bolts you need to get at.
6.) Remove the wheel bearing bolts. This is kind of a pain because of the axle being in the way, but with the axle out of the hub as far as it can go, it does move around a lot and so you can position your wrench as pictured. I always had the 1/2" wrench handle pointing to the back of the car for the best position. You want to remain perpandicular to the bolt to make sure the triple square gets the best grip on the bolt before you start trying to back it out. I could have used a slightly shorter version of it in this photo.. and, they are very tight, but as soon as they get loose they are very easy to keep unscrewing.
Here's another shot of the socket on the bottom rear bolt, the socket is right up against it, but it's very easy to move because the axle is so loose.
So eventually after some swearing and some sore wrists, you'll get all the bolts out and the whole assembly should fall out of the knuckle.
7.) Press the old bearing off the hub and press the new one on. I took mine down the street to Monro muffler, gave the guy a $20 bill, and he did it in 15 minutes. It does indeed take a press, you can't seperate the two any other way because as you can see in the photo, the hub is actually pressed onto the INSIDE of the bearing instead of the bearing being pressed to the inside of the hub on some other kinds of carrs.
Old bearing and hub next to new bearing -
New bearing on hub -
8.) Install wheel bearing assembly. I used some red lock tite (in a tube) on the 4 bolts since it looks like the original bolts had locktite on them. But other than that, install is reverse of removal. Tighten the 4 bolts as much as you can. I don't have exact torque specs, but the bolt will suddenly get tight and I could only maybe turn it another 1/8th of a turn before it just wouldn't go any more, and was probably tighter than the original bolts were when I took them off.
Axle back in the hub, new axle bolt threaded in -
9.) Torque the axle bolt to 145 ft/lbs. The last thing I did was put the wheel back on the car, lower the car completely back onto the ground, left the center cap off and torqued the bolt down. Snap the center cap back on, torque the wheel bolts down, and DONE!
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"Amy" 
Originally Posted by VisionPaintball
) Thanks for the write up! The whole process is much easier with the spindle off the car.
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