My son's car has a bad rear wheel-bearing. I've never changed one, but decided to give it a try. So here are a few questions from an amateur...

First, when I slid the new hub onto the spindle, the assembly came apart. The inner part separated from the outer part. I simply jammed everything back together and put it in place. Once on, the assembly spun very smoothly and easily.

I then tightened the hub bolt. I accidentally over-torqued it by about 20-30 pounds (wrong setting on wrench). I loosened it and retorqued to 134 ft. lbs.

Now the assembly doesn't spin freely. It's tight but smooth.

Questions: Is the assembly coming apart when sliding it on a problem? Did overtorquing cause an irreversible problem even though I corrected it? Should the assembly be tight when spun or should it spin freely like it did before being bolted down.

Thank you for any information or additional advice!

 

The preload that you get from tightening the spindle nut will give it a bit of friction. Not sure how to quantify that, but maybe use a torque wrench to turn the bearing and see how much drag there is?

Exactly what came apart? If the entire cartridge bearing came out, that's probably OK. If the bearing actually came apart (where you can see the rolling elements of the bearing), then maybe not OK.

 

It's hard to explain, but when I pushed the assembly onto the spindle, an inside 'sleeve' popped out of the front. I ended up pushing it back in so everything was flush. I couldn't see any rolling parts. Should I take the unit off and see if I can separate them by hand to better describe it? I haven't staked the hub bolt yet.

As far as the friction, when I put my finger on one of the lug bolts and give it a hard spin, it barely goes one time around before it stops.

Thank you for your reply and info!

 

I went ahead and uninstalled it and the inside sleeve seems to be in two parts. The sleeve on the outside of the assembly is the part that popped out when I slid on the spindle. I tried to remove it by hand and couldn't.

As for friction, a half turn loose loosened the assembly to nearly free-spin. Once tightened to spec, it gets very tight and will not continue spinning if spun by hand.

What's the worse that could happen? Needing a new assembly? I'm paranoid tire will fly off the car.

 

I guess it's possible for the bearing to come apart while driving.

I'd tighten it to spec, then use a torque wrench to tell us how much torque it takes to spin it.

Then test drive, short distance at first. Check right away for that hub to be hotter than the others. Then a longer test-drive & check temperatures. Depending on how much drag you measure, you should be real careful about just driving off.

 

Thanks Jim. How exactly do I use the torque wrench to test the force used to turn the wheel? I have one of those 150 ft. lbs clicking wrenches.

I did go for a short drive (few miles) and heard no noise from the bearing and nothing unusual. I didn't test the hub temp but rather the rotors and all were hot to the touch but I'm guessing that's due to braking. I will take it back out and compare the temp of the hubs.

IF the bearing is failing and generating excessive heat, would I expect it to make noise or could it fail quietly? The entire reason we changed this was because of that awful growling noise from a bad bearing and so far, the repair cured that.

 

Figure out a way to use the torque wrench to turn the hub. For example, run a wheel nut all the way onto a stud, then put the wrench on that nut. Put the wrench on that nut so that the distance from the handle to the socket is pretty close to the distance from the handle to the hub-centerline.

Set the wrench to the lowest setting. Does it click before the hub spins? If so, then raise the setting until the hub spins.

The nice thing about a cheap beam-wrench is that it can sorta read all the way down to zero. A clicker wrench can only be set as low as what, 20 or 30? Hopefully your hub turns more easily than that.