Thread: wheel bearings

Originally Posted by Mayberry

gonna give it a crack at doing them all myself. any advice since i haven't done this before.

Well, it's not rocket science, pretty straightforward procedure. You will need a size 52 socket, though. And finally you will have to make sure you will settle the bearings correctly and adjust play. A workshop manual will be helpful (check in the "Files"-section). When fitting the bearings at the fourth wheel you will have got the hang.
Cheers

how properly do you want to do it?

If you're unsure of the condition you should really pull the hub, clean, inspect and then repack the bearings along with the stub shaft.

You'll want some new gaskets or a tube of gasket goop to reseal the flange.

I bought my hub nut socket from ebay for about $20 delivered.

Also, I found there were a few youtube video's specifically showing Land Rover wheel bearings being changed/greased. I highly recommend watching one. A video makes everything much clearer after reading the workshop manual.

Not been suggested, but rather than just changing you can tighten them. This can be done if the bearing is still fine for use, the way to check that is to pull the hub off, get the roller bearings out and check for signs of wear (or as I've had, you end up with a hand full of bearings ).
If they are OK then you can just refit and go through the standard settling procedure. You can need to do this due to wear in the bearings or the lock nuts moving. Remember to regrease the bearings when you refit and you'll need hub seals in any case.

My procedure for getting the lock nuts set:
1) tighten the first nut hard, this ensures the bearing is fully home and happy.
2) slack the nut off.
3) tighten hand tight or tight and off a half turn.
4) different than usually suggested, I put a wheel back on and feel the play, you want no to very little play. Putting the wheel back on gives you the same leverage as it will have in the end, so is truly representative.
5) Adjust the lock nut as needed.
5) put the lock washer on, knock the flat over (I think you do the first one now, haven't done one for a while)
6) second lock nut on, tighten hard, but watch first the nut for moving.
7) fit wheel again and check

If you are running around metro then I'd be content to do this, I used to regularly have to re-tighten new bearings after a major weekend off roading in the UK.

If heading out on long journeys then not sure, I think it would be a case of re-tighten, run for a few weeks and recheck. Truly failed ones tend to loosen again quite quickly.

This job can be done in the bush, my tool kit at home to do this was a mallet, chisel an old race and hub nut spanner - so if you have spares you could take them with you to be sure. Remember to put the wheel nuts back on the hub when you are bashing the race out to protect the thread, and a star pattern when driving them back in.

If you cant readily identify why you have wheel slop from the bearings do not just retighten them... Pull the hub off, remove degrease and inspect the bearings.

I do a number of trailers a year that the owners moan about "but it should have been right. I only tightened the bearings up a couple of thou ago."

tighten hand tight or tight and off a half turn.

HALF A TURN??????
1 flat more likely.
Regards Philip A

or....

Remove the wheel,
remove the drive flange (you may need to pull circlips off on some models) + the drive axle as required
remove the outer bearing lock nut
remove the lock tab (this should be replaced, if you're not hammer it flat and inspect it for tears or elongation of the flat/finger replace if the inside edge is damaged or there are tears)
Remove the inner bearing nut + the spacer. Inspect the face of the spacer and the condition of the grease/oil. you might want to pull the outer bearing out and inspect its rollers and race by eye

(assuming you only want to do a quicky inspection and a reset on the bearings I'll skip how to completely dissasemble the hub from the stub)

reset the outer bearing on the spindle and in its race
Replace the spacer push it in by hand (a 1/2 inch extention bar works well) and turn the hub to ensure its all seated more or less correctly)
apply the inner bearing nut and wind it up to hand tight
while turning the hub tighten the the inner nut to 150NM OR as tight as you can while still being able to turn the hub without "notching" during rotation.
Back the nut off 1 full turn, retighten it to 50NM turn the hub, recheck 50NM if the inner nut moves at 50nm turn the hub and recheck, repeat this process until you can turn the hub and the nut does not move when 50nm is applied.
mark one stud on the hub and align this stud with the flat on the nut where you are going to fold the lock tab inwards.
place on the lock tab, tighten up the outer lock nut to 150nm
fold the locktab over.
replace the axle/drive flange.
replace the wheel.

on the lock tab Fold the edges over so that

• the folds are not immediately adjacent (as near to 180 degree seperation as possible is preferable)
• the folds are not over the points of the flat inside the locktab
• the folds are not over previously flattened out folds

Can anyone tell me the difference between NTN wheel bearings and timkin wheel bearings, as have just purchased some and on the ebay site it says they are timkin bearings but when i got them today in the mail they are NTN.