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I've been tackling a front-right bearing replacement job on my 87 900T today. Besides the bearing itself, the CV joint has been loud and sloppy for the entire span of my ownership (around 20 years; yikes) and I found a cheap Lobro replacement in recent years that has been waiting on my parts shelf. The SKF replacement bearing arrived and I was ready to go.
Via watching lots of Youtube videos, I felt ready and sufficiently prepared for the job with a bearing press kit. The first hiccup occurred when realizing I had been disregarding the slide-hammer equipment part of the videos I had studied. That tool comes in handy when you need to yank the hub from the knuckle. Harbor Freight had a kit that did the job without any problem.
Pressing the old bearing out was a little difficult as I don't have a sturdy bench or vise but I finally extracted the old bearing with the help of a heavy-steel engine lift in my backyard; that thing gave me enough solidity that I could apply adequate torque in getting the old bearing out. The relevance of a shop hydraulic press was made clear with this wrestling match.
I used a wire-wheel brush to clean out the knuckle cavity and the new SKF bearing slid/pressed in with about one-sixteenth the effort needed in pressing the old bearing out. I think the old failed bearing had generated some heating issues that added difficulty into the removal process. And the inner-race still squeezed onto the hub showed some shallow craters about 180-degrees apart (see pic in gallery link below). Los Angeles can exact significant tolls on your car with just routine driving. This bearing was generating a lot of noise by the time I stopped driving it a few weeks ago and these spots would indicate this thing's end-of-life stage.
Everything was clean and organized on my work table but an issue arose when as a test I gently squeezed the hub into the newly installed bearing. It wasn't sliding in very easily and I pulled and gently wiggled it back out. But in that process with my hands, the inner race (tire side) of the new bearing tugged free from the bearing; I wasn't expecting that. I was staring at my new but now partly-separated SKF sealed bearing.
This now-separated inner race was not simply falling or popping back into the bearing. The grease complicated my perception but it seemed the fit involved some squeezing and stretching around the roller-ball-bearing cage and the roller-balls themselves. The seal wasn't affected. I tried fidgeting for a few minutes with just pressing the race in with my hands and the results were only failure. I was trying to fathom buying another new bearing because of a stupid mistake.
As a test, I used some pieces from my bearing-press kit to (as gently as possible) squeeze/compress the separated race back into the bearing. I packed the exposed bearings with additional bearing grease (the red stuff) and alternated between simple compressing the thing back in and rotating/spinning the race via the hand ratchet. It was a little difficult getting the thing approximately flat enough to press in but with some soft clunking/clicking, the race was suddenly popped back in place and felt as smooth in rotating as the (still-intact) transmission-side of the new wheel bearing. The snap rings popped into place without issue and the knuckle seems viable.
The new CV joint swap was complication-free in getting onto the axle shaft. Dusk hit before I could re-install everything but I'm looking forward to putting everything back onto the car in the morning.
My plan is to just drive it and listen for any sign of bearing noise from the front right; I'm half-expecting to repeat this job with a new bearing but who knows...maybe the accidental disassembly/re-assembly will prove nothing significant. I had no idea a fresh bearing could be so fragile.
Has anyone experienced new (sealed) wheel-bearings accidentally separating?
https://www.saabnet.com/tsn/members/gallery.html?memberID=1829&do=show&id=81286
->Posting last edited on Sat, 28 Dec 2024 20:21:24.
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(#1829) [Profile/Gallery]
(more from StoicBlue87) on Sat, 28 Dec 2024 19:53:56
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, Sun, 29 Dec 2024 10:50:21
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