[TechWrench]

I have an '03 Limited V8, which I acquired in Aug '14 from the a friend who was the original owner. He has no mechanical skills, so all his maintenance is done at the dealership where he bought it new. He does a lot of distance driving for his job, so he puts a lot of highway miles on his vehicles. It had 262k when I got it, for a real good price. It has been mostly trouble free, with only normal maintenance, for me. Last Wednesday, I had a set of new summer tires installed on my summer wheels, and I went to swap the with my winter set.

A back note, I was aware that I had a wheel bearing starting to make noise (more like a feeling than an actual noise at first), and it seemed to be the right rear. I have a copy of his maintenance work done at the dealer, and he had the L/F bearing replaced in 12/05 at 65k, and the R/F done in 10/07 at 116k, so I felt sure the problem was in the rear. I put it up on stands, and at that time, in Jan this year, there was no looseness in any of the wheels. I ordered a set of rear bearings (figured to do both sides at the same time), and a DuraSolid bearing removal tool, which was a waste of money because none of the supplied plates will fit the rear axle bearing flange), but that is another story.

So when I started to swap the front wheels, I found the right front now had significant play in the bearing (Oh S@hit). I had planned to make a 3 hr trip NJ on Saturday, so I had to fix the bearing in a hurry. I found a bearing assy., at NAPA, along with the inner and outer seals for $95, and since I have a 20 ton press, and have done bearings on some other vehicles, I figured it should be an easy job to take care of. Napa didn't have the hub assy., in stock (for an additional $80), and I wasn't willing to wait for them to ship one in, so I went with re-using the original hub assy. (How hard could it be?) Well, as the saying goes, things didn't go quite as planned. I did the research both here and online to get an idea of what I was in for, and I didn't see anything that gave me cause to be concerned. ( a quick note for those that tend to rely on yutube DIY videos, the one by Eric the car guy recording his repair on a 4Runner L/F wheel bearing is, IMHO, a good example of how not to do this job if you don't have the right tools) I have at least 4 separate issues with how he did the job, but I digress.

I got the old bearing/hub assy of the vehicle in a fairly short time. But once I looked at it closely, I realized I wouldn't be able to use the press to remove the hub from the bearing because of the lack of clearance. I resorted to using a medium size two-jaw bearing puller. Which wasn't quite up to the task. I worked on it for almost 3 hours, using a combo of heat and impacts, before I got the first half of the bearing to start to move. And even then, it only moved about a 1/4" before it stopped. I tried cutting the inner race with a die grinder and cutting wheel, but because of the lack of clearance, I could only get an 1/8" notch cut in it. I tried using that notch to crack the race with a chisel, but that didn't work either. I finally cut a notch in the outer bearing housing, and was able to remove all the rollers from both bearings. Once they were out of the way, I finally managed to get the first inner race off the hub, then I then removed the outer bearing housing, and was able to work on the second inner bearing race. I finally got it off. Upon inspection, I found several dings and one grinder cut on the hub shaft, that were there from the dealerships attempt at replacing the bearing in '07. If I had the choice, I would have waited to get a new hub, but time was against me, so I cleaned up the hub, and pressed it into the new bearing assy., with a new outer seal (which Eric the car guy forgot in his video). I went to replace the inner seal, but it looked like it was never replaced in '07, because it was in real bad shape, and there was a lot of rust in the yoke housing. I got the remains of the old seal out, but had difficulty in cleaning the opening completely, because of the ABS sensor (which I had hoped to not have to disturb), but I finally decided to remove the sensor to get the area cleaned properly. Well, that didn't go as planned either. The sensor was stuck in the opening, and wouldn't budge no matter what I tried. So, I finally snapped the end off trying to remove it (Oh S@it, again). I thought no big deal, I get a new one. Was I surprised to find out how frigging much a new one cost, and no one in the immediate area had one. At this point, I had given up on making the NJ trip with this vehicle, so I finished cleaning up the yoke, installed the new inner seal and the new hub/bearing assy., and finished installing the summer wheels. I parked it, and started looking online for a new sensor. At this point, my finances made me look for a less expensive sensor than what Toyota or Napa offered. So I ordered a $40 unit from an ebay seller in Mass., which is guaranteed for a year, and will be here by Wednesday. Hope it works.

So the moral of this LONG story is, next time I need to replace another front wheel bearing, I'll get an assy., from nj636. The extra $80 is well worth the savings in time and the hassle I went through. And I will follow up with how the aftermarket ABS sensor works.


UPDATE: I finally got a new ABS sensor for the R/F, and all is good. Runs quiet again. Now waiting for the next 'SHOE'................;-)

Time for a beer, or two.....................