Wheel Bearing Replacement

Rather than start another thread devoted to wheel bearings I thought I'd share my experience here. About 1 year ago, I broke an OE wheel bearing during a little off-roading excursion. Given how I didn't have a shop full of tools & didn't want to deal with the hassle of getting it to a mechanic (it actually had to be towed home), I went with the pre-pressed wheel hub & bearing assembly. These were an off-brand bought from 1A Auto, no manufacturers mark on the bearings, only the letters "TRQ" on the outside of the box. This bearing failed on me about 3 weeks ago when I was driving through Yellowstone National Park, though this time not as spectacularly, so we got it home. Now that I have access to a few more tools, I decided to stick with the name brand bearings which in general don't come with a prepressed hub, so I'm on the hook for figuring that out. Well, I was able to take the old bearing apart today and the image attached basically shows where the noise was coming from this time. The bearing race seems to have a flaw in the surface itself, which I think if I had a name brand bearing, this would have never left the factory. Moral of the story: Stick with a reputable bearing name. NSK seems to be the best design wise, but keep in mind that TIMKEN is the named distributor of both NSK and Koyo bearings, which can be difficult to tell whether you're getting one or the other untill they arrive in the mail.

 

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/wheel-bearings-hubs-press-service-4x4-prerunner-nsk.537080/
This guy sells NSK with the bearing pressed already and he was great to work with, you just PM him with what you want.

 

You can buy a genuine Toyota NSK bearing online for ~$130. I realize that's not cheap, but they should also last 100K miles like the OE ones do. Counterfeit bearings are widespread so I wanted something I could trust.

If you have any questions on the press and install part, start a thread; I just went thru this a week ago.

 

Hi Eherlihy,

In the 3 times I've taken the drivers-side wheel bearing off, I only removed the ABS sensor the first time, but that was because the entire steering knuckle had to come off too (replaced the inner axle seal at the knuckle). Granted, it's super easy to take off (just 1 bolt), so if you're worried about damaging it during your wheel bearing swap it's not a huge deal to take it out. The other 2 times I had no issues with it staying put.

For the O ring, Toyota's part number is: 90301-A0005
https://parts.olathetoyota.com/oem-...0YWNvbWEmeT0yMDA5JnQ9YmFzZSZlPTQtMGwtdjYtZ2Fz

The bearings you bought MIGHT be ok for another 50k+. It really depends. In my case, it's obvious QA/QC was not there. Everything else inside the wheel bearing looked great, but I did get to compare it to the OEM wheel bearing (NSK), and there was a noticeable difference in the rollers themselves, ie. the TRQ bearings were shorter. So if you plan on doing some off-roading with these TRQ bearings, be extra gentle

 

You do not have to remove the ABS sensor- just use some caution once the hub/bearing assy is removed. If you do remove the sensor, it has an o-ring on it that should be replaced. Like above, I've only pulled the sensor when I had to remove the knuckle.

 

Good job. The axle nut caps are a PITA to get off without damage but it can be done- it just takes some time. I use two old ~1.5" wide paint scrapers to start it off and then switch to two tiny pry bars- pry between the lip and the rotor. To hold the rotor I put a long tapered alignment punch in the fins

 

The difference between 35mm and 1 3/8" is only .003". Sockets are not made with that kind of precision, so it doesn't even matter which you use. In fact, I wonder if tool manufacturers use the same socket for both and just stamp different numbers on them.

 

Good Step-by-step, My notes:

• For your brake caliper bolts, I'd recommend you use that nice shiny new 50-250 torque wrench you have to tighten those to spec, the last thing you want is your caliper to come loose while driving down the road

• Did you put those O-ring gaskets onto your new bearing housings? The ones that go between the bearing and the steering knuckle? It may seem insignificant but these are your main line of defense of keeping that space inside the steering knuckle clear of dirt and debris on the out-board side of the vehicle. Once water & dirt start seeping in they can wreak havoc to the other seals & even metal components over time, and I forgot to put one of these on once and basically had to do the whole job over again.

I WISH i could convince my nearest dealer to replace my frame, but I'm not in a cold climate state and my truck has considerably less miles for its age than most so there isn't enough 'rust perforation' , but all that is another topic for another post!

One other note that I think everyone should know about - In the 2005 Toyota Tacoma Repair Manual, a formula is provided when you have to use a secondary tool to apply the right amount of torque to a bolt. The 4 bearing bolts into the steering knuckle are a prime example of this. The formula is on page 7 of this PDF: https://www.customtacos.com/tech.ol...6toyrm/06toypdf/06rmsrc/rm2006ta/00100310.pdf You can actually work backwards on this too: If your torque wrench doesn't go high enough, if you use a secondary tool such as a box wrench and then a hex socket, you could via ALGEBRA (i know, they said we wouldn't need this skill in real life), determine a torque value that is within the limits of your torque wrench.

 

This was gold. Thanks for posting!

 

I got prepressed hub assemblys from rock auto. Only special tool I needed was a torque wrench. Took me 3 hours in my driveway to do both sides.

 

Dlbfla, Did you happen to peek at the bearing manufacturer name when you got those?

 

I believe it was dorman. I have a buddy who found them at orileys just had to order them at the store.

 

How long is it "safe" to drive on a wheel bearing that's going out? I started to hear the trademark droning hum about 2 months ago, jacked it up and wiggled the wheel and there's noticable play in the hub.

I plan to swap out the hub assembly in the next couple of weeks but I'm starting to get nervous driving at highway speeds.

I skimmed through the thread but didn't see anything about a total failure or the wheel coming off or anything like that.

 

My right front wheel bearing went from making no noise to making quite a bit of noise in about 75 miles. The next morning after I got home, I jacked it up and checked it. It was so loose that I didn't even want to risk driving it any more. I parked it til I got the bearings and changed them.

 

Mines been a slower progression. I'd say about 1k mi since I noticed it but it's definitely getting louder. I plan to drive as little as possible until I can change it. I just don't want anything terrible to happen.

 

I went for quite some time with mine, but I'd recommend changing ASAP.

 

I remember last year when I was looking for replacement bearings I highly considered going this route, but I had a gut feeling that I may end up regretting it based on some of the posts I saw over time from folks alluding to the lack of responsiveness and delays. Sounds like I dodged a bullet.

 

Just did mine a couple months back. Have an 09 trd off road 4x4 with 150k. Started making a growling noise on the RF. I wrenched In the industry for over 10 years before changing careers. Avoid getting those pre pressed bearing from some random joe. A lot of mechanics don’t know how to properly press a bearing and will only last a few months if that. Save money and time. If you got tools, do it yourself. I bought the doorman pre pressed bearing. From Amazon

$125 Dorman 950-001 Pre-Pressed Hub Assembly - Front Compatible with Select Lexus / Toyota Models (OE FIX)

Dorman 950-001 Front Pre-Pressed Hub Assembly for Select Lexus/Toyota Models

Was in and out in about an hour. No alignment needed. YouTube has some good videos on people changing the bearing.

 

I haven't heard good or bad about Dorman. Not sure who to get hubs from. Rock Auto, BamaToy and nj636 are out.

 

If I recall, I haven't heard anything bad about Dorman from the TW folks here that have actually used them. While certainly not a first top tier choice, I think they're worth a shot given their price and convenience. Plus, with Dorman being such a large outfit I heard they're pretty good about standing behind their products.