Defective bearing, wheel bearing “break in period”?

OP got it right. When you press the hub/flange into the bearing you have to support the inner race. The two halves of the inner race will spread if you dont.

Its probably the other side and you just couldn't hear it over the sound of the worse one

 

I think he drove the bearing into the flange by the inner race. I don't know what he did for the hub to go in.

It's why I'd just buy the pre-made ones on here by someone that does it everyday.

When I got my first gens done (we don't have the luxury of getting completes. I still worry because the idiot shop I used griped about how hard it was and jacked up the price because he "broke all his bearing splitters" that I doubt he got them right.

BTW OP. Look on this thread about grease and take a look at how Timmah presses bearings.
Maybe you'll recognize a FUBAR or at least put your mind at ease about it.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/question-on-new-front-wheel-bearings.560325/#post-18332710

 

Why do I get the strange feeling you would have said this no matter which way I had done it - by the inner or outer race?

wut...?
Why would I press it in via the outer race? That would put pressure on the outer race, which would press the (ball) bearings into the inner race, which would then cause the hub to slide in.
Why wouldn't I press directly on the inner race to avoid crushing the balls?

So what do you have to say about the noise going away when turning right?
The way I understood it is when you turn right, you are loading up the left wheel bearing, and unloading the right one, which would make it quiet if it's bad, and vice versa when turning left.

I used a drift supporting the inner race of the wheel bearing while I pressed it onto the hub. The hub was resting on scrap wood while I pressed it.

The reality is wheel bearings aren't that hard to install. They are nearly regular maintenance items. They usually have a life span of >100k miles. Nothing spooky going on for an established shop to easily mess up. They may be labor intensive, but nothing out of the ordinary.
I've done wheel bearings on a few cars before, both sealed and the re-pack-able tapered kind.

 

Prob. because of the way I said i didn't know how you got the hub in. It came across badly, I just didn't know. Sorry. If you feel like you got it in right, that's fine. It's all a shop can do.

Maybe we're just crossed up about which is inner and which is outer. I just know they cant be pushed in the middle. It does exactly what you said you didn't do.

 

You drove 4000 miles in one day?

 

This is exactly why you buy pre assembled hubs.
Never press from the inner race..

 

Sometimes the tricks don't always work the way you expect. Sometimes you gotta fix the loud noise before you're going to hear the quiet-er noise.

Is the backing plate rubbing against the rotor?

The stethoscope or long screw driver method for listening is good. You can also just spin the wheel while grabbing the knuckle. It should be butter smooth through your hand. Any kind of roughness is a bad bearing

 

I quickly jacked up both sides and tried to hand-spin them as fast as possible to create the noise. No luck. Very quiet with the exception of gentle pad-on-rotor scraping.
Will try again with, including with wheel off, to inspect more carefully.

 

Drove from Virginia to Colorado...then back to Virginia. July 19 to July 27. Total round trip including trails was just over 4,000...so obviously not in one day.

 

I was just being a wise ass. Nothing like getting an oil change, going for a road trip, and getting another oil change a week later!

 

oh I know...but I did the oil change the day before I left...and yep...3 days after I get back...another air filter and oil change. lol

 

There is a plastic spaxer in there that you take out before you press the hub in it. At least both of mine had them in it.

 

UPDATE:
I spent all day working on the front end of my truck. Took a good long while with a stethoscope probing all over.

I started with the driver's side. Jack it up, spin the tire - typical pad-on-rotor scraping, but I hear some faint clicking. That wasn't there 4 days ago when I checked...
Wheel off, and the clicking is louder. I take the caliper off and it sounds like marbles in a can. It got a lot more pronounced when I removed the rotor.



I probe with the stethoscope and it's 100% coming from the diff, where the driver's CV goes into the housing.
I remember the needle bearing issue with Tacomas "but I thought that was a v6 truck issue?"
Google shows:

Both my CVs have play like in the video, but neither are as bad as the video. I look into bad needle bearings, and the "telltale sign" is that the noise changes/goes away when shifting into 4hi. I switched from 2hi into 4hi several times, zero difference in anything. No difference in straight line, slight left/right turning.

Also -
Put stethoscope at the driver's bearing. Quiet, smooth. Nothing sounded worn out to my untrained ear.
Put stethoscope at passenger bearing (the new one) - totally silent. Glass smooth. The passenger one being so quiet made the driver's side sound loud.

Gonna buy a new DS bearing and see what happens. DS has absolutely zero play, and zero noise (sans) stethoscope when turned, but I do still have a faint vibration at 60-65 mph. Very slight steering wheel shaking.

Also also -
went to check my front diff fluid. fill plug is 10mm hex, but drain plug is 12mm hex My research shows that my drain plug should be a matching 10mm?
IDK how to get it out. Trying to figure out what I can shove in there. I love a tight squeeze, but I'm at a loss

 

drain and fill plugs should both be ten millimeter. Has your front differential fluid ever been changed before? Sometimes the drain plug gets filled with mud and other debris that needs to be cleaned out to get the hex key in there. If it only goes in part way you're probably going to round it out as those plugs get tight over time.

 

No idea if fluid has been done. plugs were as clean as could be.

For reference, I put the head of a 12mm bolt in the drain plug and it fit perfectly.