Hey Friends,

Questions about wheel bearings:
First, I'm pretty sure I have a bad wheel bearing in my front right wheel. It's making a jingling or higher pitched zerp-zerp-zerp sound that matches with the speed of the tires. Anyway I thought it was just bad tires but I recently bought new tires and I can hear it a little more clearly now. I took it back to the guys at Pep Boys to see if they concur with the bad wheel bearing theory, the mechanic walked out and pressed the tire around while the truck was still on the ground, he didn't really give me much info.

Anyway I also need to replace my lower ball joints soon, could the previous mentioned symptoms of vibrations and noise come from bad ball joints? The Pep boys guy said it could but that wouldn't make sense , I assume bad LBJ's wouldn't exhibit those problems but I could be wrong.

Second, about wheel bearing replacements
From what I've gathered, some manufacturers or parts companies sell the whole assembly of the wheel bearing and hub (cutting out the need to press the bearing in and out). This is not the case with 3rd gen runner parts right? I ask this since it may be something I'd want to try and tackle myself and out of sheer convenience and laziness don't really want to try and find someone to press out the bearings.

I had an issue that was more hub related than the bearing itself. I could hear a slight grinding sound when rotating my front right tire near where the bearing would be so I assumed it was the issue. I had the bearings ready to go when I noticed the rotor wasn't sitting flush with the hub after removing it.

For whatever reason, it may have been due to age or rust build up, the inside lip of the rotor where it meets the 90 degree corner of the hub would rock from side to side just a little bit. This explained why my dam rotor on that specific side was always so hard to get off and my excess brake wear on that caliper.

Anyway, I took a dremel and cleared off some of the rust build up. Now my rotor sits flush and has no grinding noise near the hub. I hope this no cost solution works for your situation.

Edit: I should clarify that the grinding noise didn't show up while driving. Only while having the tire lifted and rotating it by hand could I hear it. This also cleared up my brake squeal when I would hit the brakes after parking for a while.

When it comes to buying buying a spindle with the bearing already pressed in, unfortunately there are no 3rd gen options.

If you can get a cheap low mileage 2WD spindle, all you would need to do is remove the UBJ from the control arm, the 4 bolts connecting the spindle to the LBJ, and the two bolts to the brake caliper (plus the brake line). For 4WD spindles, you probably need a long breaker bar to get the bearing nut off to remove the CV axel.
-No press work required. * Although you may need to rent a UBJ removal kit.

If you decide you need to replace a bad wheel bearing, buy a harbor freight press and some press sleeves and do the job yourself. The money you save in labor costs will pay for the tools and then some.

The first video is mainly so you can see how to get the knuckle off and back on the vehicle. The second video is to show how to do the press work for an ADD hub.

Thanks for the inputs, I'll look and see if anything is wrong with the rotor and then go from there

Also thanks for the video links, they're really interesting and helpful!

A quick test for the wheel bearing issue is to jack up the side, and give the wheel a spin. If it's bad, you'll hear it.

Oh.....it probably is a bad bearing then...I actually did that and heard some scraping sounds when I spun the wheel. I'll poke around a little more but ultimately it looks like I'm gonna have to replace the bearing

Scraping or grinding is a bad bearing. You can pull the ABS sensor from the spindle, and it'll most likely have metal shavings attached to it. Wheel bearing are pretty easy to do after you do one or two.

The best, albeit little more work is to jack up the problem side and remove the tire and caliper. Then spin the rotor. Should be whisper quiet. You can even do the other side and compare if you want.