Wheel Bearing Project Complete (56k death)

entirelyturbo · Post by **entirelyturbo** » Sun Jul 10, 2005 9:24 am

The grease that came with it. I suppose that any bearing you buy will come pre-greased, but you never know.

I think I have a lot of the noises in the back traced down to something very simple: I have no shims on my rear pads. The car has never had shims on the back, the pads have just been sitting there freely. For some reason, I never had a problem with the Raybestos pads sitting there shim-less for over a year, but these new pads must have larger gaps in their holding bracket thingies. So I have a loud clicking noise whenever I hit the brakes only while I'm moving, which tells me the pads are shifting when the brakes are applied, and I have some rattling back there over bumps or rough surfaces which goes away when I apply the brakes, so I think the pads are just moving around way too much. I will address that as soon as I can since I will probably wear out the pads and rotors prematurely that way.

I think the rest of the clunks indicate that I might not have the nuts on the tops of the strut rods tight enough, so I will probably bring the car in to my dealer Monday and have them hit em with an air gun to be sure.

This will come together, and I will keep this car somehow. Every mile I drive in this car I love it more. I never noticed that this car performs really really well until I didn't drive it for a couple months.

THAWA · Post by **THAWA** » Sun Jul 10, 2005 5:00 pm

I'm not sure how the manufacturer of the bearing you bought sends its bearings, but OEM bearings come in a "shipping" grease and not a wheel bearing grease. You have to pack the OEM with wheel bearing grease. I hope that's not the case for your bearings.

Yeah the no shims deal sounds feasible, do you have the anti rattle clips too?

entirelyturbo · Post by **entirelyturbo** » Sun Jul 10, 2005 9:06 pm

The whole bearing is assembled completely when you purchase it, so it would not only be very morally wrong on the part of the manufacturer but just plain stupid for the customer to have to disassemble the bearing and grease it.

I don't have anything except pads on the rear.

evolutionmovement · Post by **evolutionmovement** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 4:46 am

Just like trucks ... If you used the grease that came with it you may be screwed. You need to use bearing grease and pack them in with a tool that forces the grease into the bearing. As Hardy said, they come in packing grease to protect them from rust.

Steve

entirelyturbo · Post by **entirelyturbo** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 5:32 am

I wonder if the people who pressed my bearings in the hubs put bearing grease in them...

entirelyturbo · Post by **entirelyturbo** » Tue Jul 12, 2005 4:22 am

I'll find out about the bearings later, but Hardy, the mechanic at my Subie dealer contradicts you. He says they're specifically instructed not to open the OEM bearings as they are pre-greased.

But I will post an update really quick...

I kinda got reamed on the shims, since I pretty much had to just buy a set of rear brake pads. The set comes with the whole kit, and was in stock. It would take me several days, and it would cost pretty much as much money to get all the shims and have them express shipped as it did just for the set of pads. So I have a set of OEM pads which are of no use to me, but whatever. Point is, I put the shims on today and all the rattling and clicking sounds that I was complaining of are completely gone as expected. So that's hurdle #1.

I took the car to my Toyota dealer again tonight and asked one of the guys to hit the nuts on top of the strut rods with an impact wrench. Sure enough, he got them about twice as tight as I would have been able to, and here's a really scary part: the nut on my left rear strut was hand-loose!! I really shouldn't have been driving it like that all weekend, but I didn't have much choice. But whatever, he tightened them all up and all the clunks and such are now gone.

Car is 98% noise-free (it is a 15-year-old car after all), it drives like a friggen dream, the GR2's handle AMAZING, and I'm very very happy.

So this project is 100% complete now.

entirelyturbo · Post by **entirelyturbo** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 6:42 pm

The project is 99.99912% complete actually...

I found something I missed.

I forgot to put the driver's front brake dust shield back on

I didn't even notice until it was sitting innocently on the floor in my garage...

entirelyturbo · Post by **entirelyturbo** » Thu Jul 21, 2005 4:20 pm

Just for the sake of consistency, I did an AFTER video too. It's a little shorter (it's only about 3MB so 56k could DL it if you're patient), because I lent my camera out to a friend who left some pics on it that he doesn't want me to delete yet, but you can still tell the wheel bearing moan is gone and the clunking is gone.

Oh, and my car sounds like that 100% stock, snorkus and all

Right click, save as, again thanks a bazillion Hardy for all this webspace:

http://www.thawa.net/gallery/albums/Videos/000_0280.mov

Manarius · Post by **Manarius** » Sun Jul 24, 2005 3:38 am

Are your back brakes drum brakes? If so, that's rather odd for a Subaru. My '91 has Solid/Vented Disc.

entirelyturbo · Post by **entirelyturbo** » Sun Jul 24, 2005 6:39 am

All 90-94 Legacies have rear discs for the service brakes. All 90-94 Legacies (and all new-gen Soobies for that matter) have rear drums for the parking brakes.

mgjs1 · Post by **mgjs1** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 12:51 am

I just read all the way through the thread. I laughed, I cried. This stuff is as good as any novel.

Ok, maybe its cuz my bearings are buzzing so loud I can't hear my stereo. I'll have to embark on a similar project, likely with someone else doing the work as I have no tools or aptitude. Somehow, I gotta keep it cheap, and i've lost track of which corners buzz the worst, so I'll be doing all 4 too.

Good thread. Love the pics.

entirelyturbo · Post by **entirelyturbo** » Mon Aug 08, 2005 3:45 am

An update: I've driven 1000 miles since I completed this project, and I've had no problems at all.

To me that suggests that the bearings are properly greased and sealed (they would be making noise by now if the weren't), and I installed everything properly.

Now I just need to finish my A/C conversion, fix my newly-developed seat belt issue, fix hy horrible-looking exterior, etc. etc. etc.

Alvaro Alonso · Post by **Alvaro Alonso** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 1:21 am

Well, after reading the odissey

, I am begining to think it is not worth repairing dad's subby

.
Mechanically it was ok except for a front left axle I am getting for 22$.
But now after doing bodywork (yep he crashed it at less than 1 mph and got front left corner really damaged, new bumper, reinforcement and headlight) I have sadly found that after 8 months sitting in the garage, it sounds like hell when driving

, exactly as subyluvr2212 's.

What I don't understand

is why sitting there it's got so bad.
Last thing it did was driving/drifting over snow (and my be salt) ¿may be that the cause?
Any sugestion to avoid going sublvr's way?

It has to be considered it will be my first repair and I'm afraid it's gonna be too big for me.

entirelyturbo · Post by **entirelyturbo** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 2:49 am

Alvaro, do understand that I did more than just wheel bearings. I also replaced my struts, wheelstuds, rebuilt my parking brake, etc.

Also, I did all this with hand tools. I want to kick myself for doing that, I should have invested in an air gun and tank and compressor before starting this. It would have cut the time and effort of this project in half.

And simply for the fact this was the first time I've ever done this. I could do it in about half the time now, with the new knowledge I've gained from doing it.

Alvaro Alonso · Post by **Alvaro Alonso** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 8:19 am

OK then, I have an up to 8 psi compressor available but no airgun. I will be asking somewhere for it and it's suitability. I already have the never unlocking nut problem with the front left axle nut....

entirelyturbo · Post by **entirelyturbo** » Fri Aug 04, 2006 4:53 am

My rear bearings are already making noise...

I've heard it faintly for the last 700 miles or so, and tried to dismiss it as tire noise, even though I knew what it was all along. Now it's getting louder, and I'm 100% sure that's what it is.

I'm really, really, really not in a good mood right now.

biggreen96 · Post by **biggreen96** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 9:33 pm

awww man the photos in this thread are borked for me...

entirelyturbo · Post by **entirelyturbo** » Sat Feb 17, 2007 12:00 am

Yeah, I need to find another place to host the pics. Hardy (THAWA) took his site down or whatever, and that's where they all were.

In fact, I don't even know if I have them backed up anywhere

Stand by, I have to do this AGAIN pretty soon here, one hub on either end of the car, so each procedure will be covered, and I'll try to grab pics and put them up.

And this time around I know what I'm doing

biggreen96 · Post by **biggreen96** » Sat Feb 17, 2007 7:29 am

well I just jumped in and did it anyways... turned out alright. But the next one you make should be a sticky.

TheSubaruJunkie · Post by **TheSubaruJunkie** » Sat Feb 17, 2007 8:49 pm

Dude, can you find those pix PLEASE!?!? I gotta do this job to my legacy and i just wanna see how things are put together. If you can .zip them and email em to me I have an image host I can put them up on for everyone to see.

-Brian

entirelyturbo · Post by **entirelyturbo** » Tue Feb 20, 2007 2:39 am

That's the thing, I don't think I have them backed up anywhere

I'll double-check, but I'm 99% sure I don't.

TheSubaruJunkie · Post by **TheSubaruJunkie** » Tue Feb 20, 2007 2:49 am

Lame.

entirelyturbo · Post by **entirelyturbo** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 5:11 am

The 1% was right. I do have them backed up. If you want, I can get them hosted on USMB in the next few days and go back and edit all the posts.

I should add that I made a WAY bigger deal of this the first time around than I needed to.

In all honesty, I'm going to be doing this again in the next 4-6 months, probably all four again (read my "curse" thread), and do it with much better explanation and probably better pictures too. That will be much better as a how-to.

TheSubaruJunkie · Post by **TheSubaruJunkie** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 9:07 am

Im banned from the USMB, so hosting them there will do me no good. If you can .zip them, i can host them on my private server for all to see.

-Brian

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Wheel Bearing Project Complete (56k death)