98 Front Bearing Hub Change Notes and FYI's
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From: Cuba, Missouri
98 Front Bearing Hub Change Notes and FYI's
Hi Guys,
I'm still in the process of bringing my "new to me" 98 up to my maintenance standards. It has 130K on it now and I noticed the front bearings were running kind of hot. They felt ok, but decided to change them when I wanted to, not when I had too. And I figured with the mileage they probably weren't long for this world. I noticed in digging for info on changing them on here, the topics ended up on older or newer models that didn't really apply or conflicted in some way. So when I got the hubs I just decided to change them and see what happens. And of course I would have taken pictures like I did on my blend door fix (which is still working perfectly), but forgot the camera when I went to the hangar to work on it. In short, if you have a socket set, you can change these. And if you can change brake pads, you can do this. Only "specialty" tool you need that some of you might not have is a pair of snap ring pliers to get the nylon keepers loose to remove the hub assemblies, and a pair that will work will cost you way less than 10 bucks. And the Haynes/Chilton manauls aren't much help when they try to cover so many years with so many suspensions. I soaked the 3 mounting bolts on each hub for a few days with Mouse Milk, which if you've used this, you'll throw away your WD40, Kroil and other so called penetrants and they came out easily. When I got my hubs out, the inner seals were in the process of failing leaking grease out internally, so they were indeed going to fail soon.
Something else I did while I was in there and had the brake dust covers off might interest some of you. I still have the origional tie rods with no grease fittings. They were nice and tight so I decided to try to help them live a little longer. There is a raised boss if you will, like there could be a grease fitting on top. I drilled them out, but there isn't enough meat there to tap it. I just screwed in a 90 degree fitting with a little JB weld around the threads and smoothed some around the base. You can now grease them at will. Probably not worth doing just that, but if you in there doing brakes or bearings, there's plenty of room to drill them out.
If anyone wants a step by step, I'll write one, I just won't have any pictures. But it really is straight forward.
I'm still in the process of bringing my "new to me" 98 up to my maintenance standards. It has 130K on it now and I noticed the front bearings were running kind of hot. They felt ok, but decided to change them when I wanted to, not when I had too. And I figured with the mileage they probably weren't long for this world. I noticed in digging for info on changing them on here, the topics ended up on older or newer models that didn't really apply or conflicted in some way. So when I got the hubs I just decided to change them and see what happens. And of course I would have taken pictures like I did on my blend door fix (which is still working perfectly), but forgot the camera when I went to the hangar to work on it. In short, if you have a socket set, you can change these. And if you can change brake pads, you can do this. Only "specialty" tool you need that some of you might not have is a pair of snap ring pliers to get the nylon keepers loose to remove the hub assemblies, and a pair that will work will cost you way less than 10 bucks. And the Haynes/Chilton manauls aren't much help when they try to cover so many years with so many suspensions. I soaked the 3 mounting bolts on each hub for a few days with Mouse Milk, which if you've used this, you'll throw away your WD40, Kroil and other so called penetrants and they came out easily. When I got my hubs out, the inner seals were in the process of failing leaking grease out internally, so they were indeed going to fail soon.
Something else I did while I was in there and had the brake dust covers off might interest some of you. I still have the origional tie rods with no grease fittings. They were nice and tight so I decided to try to help them live a little longer. There is a raised boss if you will, like there could be a grease fitting on top. I drilled them out, but there isn't enough meat there to tap it. I just screwed in a 90 degree fitting with a little JB weld around the threads and smoothed some around the base. You can now grease them at will. Probably not worth doing just that, but if you in there doing brakes or bearings, there's plenty of room to drill them out.
If anyone wants a step by step, I'll write one, I just won't have any pictures. But it really is straight forward.
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