dr bob

A few months ago last summer, I pulled the trigger on a Sir Tools wheel bearing replacement set based on a Dave C recommendation. Finally took the time to tackle the project early in the week, with excellent results. No heat needed, carrier stayed mounted in the car, and the tool worked flawlessly although the instructions they share with the tool didn't exactly apply to my S4. The good news is that next time I need to replace rear wheel bearings it will all be done in an hour or two, knowing what I know now.

The basic results of the bearing replace include elimination of that low-frequency rumble groan that is so typical of bearings going bad. Fringe befits are both bad and good. Bad is that I can hear all the rear tire noises now. Good is that the tires aren't very noisy.

Other almost unexpected good news is that the brake pedal is much higher and firmer. Why? With the rear bearings allowing a little runout on the rear hub, the rotor would push the pads back a little extra as they wobbled their way around the hub. New bearings trued up the rotor path a bit, so the pedal doesn't have to travel as far trying to recover the additional pad travel.

Nicole, if your car still has original rear wheel bearings, you might want to consider replacements to recover some of your lost pedal travel and firmness. Ditto on front wheel bearings, for those others playing along at home.


The Sir Tools B-92 Master Kit is available from several sources on the internet. It's a few hundred dollars but well worth the investment in my opinion. I only used a few of the disks and the basic press part, a subset of all the stuff that comes in the kit. I'll get a picture instruction together when we do Rob Edwards' car in a few weeks. One of us can hold the tools while the other works the camera then. If you live in SoCal and would like to use the tool, it's available for rent. PM for details. Again, it makes the job a whole lot faster/easier than the WSM method.

SharkSkin

Good news, I look forward to the pics.

no doubt

Cool!

borland

B90:

http://www.sirtools.com/B90.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxcRUKYsTG0

What's the best price on wheel bearings? Any possibility of a group buy on bearings?

Mrmerlin

Yes DrBob pictures please,

dr bob

That's the one! I looked at buying the Porsche-specific sub kit, but by the time the extrtactor bolt thing and the sleeves were added for extracting the hub, price was the same as for the whole kit.

On the bearings, I bought them from my favorite local supplier 928 International. IIRC they are less than $100/ea, I got the SKF-branded OEM's rather than in the Porsche boxes. There really aren't a lot of options/sources. A year or three ago, it looked like they were going NLA.

Borland-- I'll let you know when we decide to do a tech day on rear wheel bearings here. You are less than an hour from the hacienda here in sunny Glendale, so it's an easy day job for you including the drive.

Nicole

Dr. Bob: How many miles do you have on your shark?

mark kibort

another fringe benefit would be to be able to put on the longer studs so that i could get rid of those bolt on spacers!

mk

Stromius

I had a few pics of mine being done. Hope that it's ok Dr Bob. I'll delete my post if you'd like but for those that just can't wait for some reference pics....

dr bob

Nicole: 88k

Mark: The outside half of the inner race still comes out with the hub, and it looks like the seal and shield are distorted in the process. You'd want to put new bearings in for sure. If a fewvof the NorCal folks want to use the tool, it would make it worthwhile shipping it up there. It probably weighs 25lbs or so.

dr bob

Pictures tell the story pretty well. I need to add the setup steps, and the removal of the inner race from the hub.

edco

I did mine last June, it's the only way to go Not an S4 hub but really close and it's as easy as it looks once you pull your axle, hardest part of the job for me was pulling the bearing race from the hub

dr bob

Matt--

The job for me didn't go quite as fast as the video but it was close. I did a lot more cleaning. The biggest challenge was getting the snap ring out, since my snap-ring pliers weren't quite strong enough. I pried and pulled with the ones I have and got the rings out OK, but a bigger/stronger set of snap-ring pliers is the final answer. There's nothing close at my local Sears store, BTW. Might find a big set and add them to the P90 kit for others to use, along with a small gear puller for removing the inner race from the hub (more later on this).

The instructions with the tool suggest that you can put the face of the press frame against the parking brake shoes, but that didn't work on mine. Not enough room between the hub and the shoes. So the shoes came out (less than a minute) and the foot and spacer were placed in a sandwich around the backing plate, with no connecting bolts. Pulling that way means no possible damage to the backing plate.

In the video, the installer is using the ratchet on the inside of the hub; I kept the thrust bearing part of the press outside and therefore only ratcheted on the outside. I used a Vise-Grip locking pliers on the inside nut on the press, wedged against the control arm to keep it from turning with the bolt. I also notice that the installer is using a torque wrench for a common ratchet, probably because it's longer than his ratchet. Recommendation: Keep the torque wrench in the toolox until you need to test the torque on something. Buy a bigger ratchet if you need one. I did everything with a 10"-long 1/2" drive ratchet, and used a 24" breaker bar a couple times just to get things started.

Removing the inner race from the hub takes only minutes. Using a MAP gas torch (hardware store item) I quickly heated just the race to get it to expand off the hub. Then a flat chisel and a few taps with the hammer started the race moving some, enough to allow the fingers of a small puller behind the race. Then the puller was used the rest of the way. No drama at all. If I had a press it would have saved a few minutes of tapping with the hammer.

edco

Bob,

I agree on everything, right down to the instructions. The video is close to our application but not exactly the same For guys that have never seen the tool in action it gives you an idea of how well this works. I have done it the other way as well, pulling the hub and using a press. This tool just makes the job so easy.

I had an industrial set of Snap Ring Pliers for the job, let me see if I can get a part # for you as the really worked great. I too ended up using map gas on the hub race

perrys4

So when is the next GTG to do Robs car, date set yet?