wheel bearings
 

my rear wheel bearings are shot.. and so is the transmission. My car has been at a mechanic for about 7 weeks, and this whole time ive been sittin around on my ass with no hope of getting a job or really doing anything without that car. It turns out that the mechanic working on the trans has spent this whole time looking for parts - parts that i found here within a day of knowing what to look for....

anyway, when i get the car back - hopefully before i need it for school - im going to need to replace the rear wheel bearings. So my question is how hard is it to find parts for this job... also, how difficult of a job is the rear wheel bearing replacement -- how long would i have to wait around for it to be done, or is it possible that i could do it myself (with very limited tools, and no experience)

if you have a local dealer, or a NAPA parts store getting the parts isn't hard. be careful because other parts houses may sell you the incorrect seals since (as of two years ago anyway) the BCA catalog had an error in their listing for the seal part numbers.

as to the other question, it depends on what you mean by limited tools. i did the job without ever having done one before , but I also had access to a hub tamer tool. without the hub tamer you must R&R the whole hub and get it to a parts house or machine shop with the proper pressing capability. other concerns: as an example, the R&R of the emergency/parking brake requires the same skills as a traditional drum brake job. getting some of the bolts off requires quite a bit of leverage and reinstallation requires a torque wrench.

if you should decide to tackle this, I would offer the following advice (that has the unfortunate side effect of slowing down the job)...only do one side at a time...that way you have a reference of what and how the various parts are connected.

WHEEL BEARINGS
 

First off I'm no mechanical expert but having this procedure done twice on my car I can tell you they use a special device to press the new bearings into place. Maybe someone on here has done this job. I haven't looked into it. Two more things. The bearings come in a packing grease and need to be cleaned of this and get another kind of grease, i think a green type. Someone else should clarify this for you. The second time they were replaced the bearing housing was also replaced on both rear wheels. This was supposed to extend the life of the bearings. They haven't went out since this was done. I keep expecting them to at any time, because they would'nt last 10,000 miles before. I had my car at Subaru for transmission work years ago and they told me two weeks to do the rebuild and then didn't order all the parts needed so thats another week. I called Subaru America and complained. They had my car done in two days when the heat was applied. Good luck in you're case.




Mike

ok, i think ill have a mechanic do the wheel bearing replacement. Would anyone be able to tell me exactly what parts are needed?

I think im going to order what is needed from subaru parts now while im waiting for the trans to be fixed. This way i wont have to wait around another month without a car waiting for parts again.

Something that should be stressed... Make sure your mechanic repacks the bearings with the right greese.
I have heard stories where they didn't (assuming the packing greese was all it needed) and the bearing soon fail after.

2 bearings, 2 inner seals, 2 outer seals and 2 axle nuts...cut in half if only doing one side

And just get a high quality, high temperature wheel bearing grease. I just asked a few people in some my more respected parts shops what they recommended and it wasn't to hard to find something.

thanks a lot