Rear Bearings

[Jarcy]

I'm about to attempt changing the rear wheel bearings on my Chimaera 500. I would have thought it's the sort of job a DIYer could have a stab at, but the Steve Heath book advises that replacing the bearing is a job he would get someone else to do.

Can anyone offer any advice or warn of any pitfalls?

[apache]

jarcy,
no but I'd like some insight here as well, my nearside front needs doing apparently, was quoted £80

[johno]

Replacing wheel bearings is a straight forward enough job given the right tools and knowledge.

The difficulty is removing the old 'races' and refitting the new ones. Garages will press these out and reverse this action to get the new ones in.

These presses gaurantee a square fitting and therefor a better job. If you do it yourself(unless you have such a press) you will have to do it with a hammer and punch and be very careful.

I have done them like this on a number of cars and have not had a problem. Including doing them on my 'S'.

However I now remove the hubs and take them to a friends garage who does the pressing for me.

You will need a Torque wrench to make sure you have redone the nuts to the correct torque and do not under estimate how difficult they can be to undo !

They may be as high as 25o lb ft and this is tight.

Good Luck

Mark

[Jarcy]

Thanks Johnno,
Got one side fixed. Now I know what I'm doing the other side should be easy.

Apache - £80 sounds reasonable. To do this job I paid £27 for a hub puller (although Halfords do one for £10 but wasn't in stock), £36 for one bearing and £12 for a 41mm hub nut socket. If I only wanted to do one side, I'd have saved myself just a fiver!