"Front Wheel Bearings"

Hello Fellow Tacoma Junkies,

What is a good interval for repacking the front wheel bearings on an old Tacoma? My Tacoma is a 1999 3.4 V6 with a 5-speed manual transmission. It is a four wheel drive, and it has manual locking front hubs. The Haynes manual says to do it every two years.

Thank you for all of potential replies.

Take care,
Paul

 

When the bearing has play, that will be commonly identified by humming sound. Cheers.

 

I wasn't even aware that the front wheel bearings are even packable. I thought they were sealed units that needs to be pressed out then back in when replaced.

 

Correct. Pretty sure 5 lug Tacomas are the only ones that can be repacked.

 

Paul unlike The 4x4 pick ups ( pre Tacoma) these can not be repacked .

These bearing often get messed up being pressed in.

They are sealed bearings not tapered bearings with the separate races .

Just what were you looking at?? The specs for the 5 lug 2wd?

 

A front wheel bearing failure on these trucks is pretty uncommon. Not saying it never happens, just not very often. A way more common maintenance item on the front suspension are the lower ball joints.

FWIW, mine, which has seen a lot of abuse has 240K miles and still on the original front wheel bearings.

 

Yeah 6 lug people are so lucky....

5luggers have/need to repack every couple of years.
Pretty simple.....I got it down to about 20min.

All the 6 lug people I know, just drive till the bearing starts to make noise.
Then they just replace.....no big deal.

They can really last a long ass time......
I think hitting curbs and water/mud incursion is what does them in.

6 lug bearings are like those in the rear.....which are known to last forever.

 

As others have said. The front wheel bearings on a 6 lug (4wd and Prerunner) are not re-packable. If you found a service interval for re-packing the hubs, that would be for 5 lug.

It's not really even a preventative maintenance item. Either the wheel bearings are good, or they're not.

To check, jack up the truck to get the weight off the front tires, push pull on the top of the tire. If there is play, the bearing is bad, if no play, the bearing is probably good.


This is NOT what you want to see:
https://youtu.be/ts7AnfkuT2M

 

For this taco guy it was more of a squeaky squeak and not much of a hum in the front that I could honestly hear
The failure of the replaced bearing shortly after replacement was violent so maybe that was a humming and couldn't hear it over the road noise

 

WOW! I wish. The super-harsh deep mud/high water conditions here in MS had my original front wheel bearings in my '97 V6 Taco 4x4 screaming at me in just 50K miles & on its 4th set of KOYO DU5496-5 sealed wheel bearings in 138K miles. It really should have been the 3rd set. But the last shop pressed both the front wheel bearings in backwards with the metal shield/seal to the inside causing both bearings to fail in under 5K miles. Preload of the front wheel bearing cannot be properly set or maintained when the bearing is pressed in backwards. My wet environment uses parts up quickly, normally from grease washout after the fine sand in this muddy water eats the seals up causing them to leak. Using a marine grade EP grease even in sealed bearings appears to be of value to me with this problem.

Very lightly used KOYO DU5496-5 front wheel bearing parts: Outer roller bearing with the metal shield/seal on left and inner roller bearing on the right. The inner roller bearing has a black seal over it.

 

Are there specific orientation markers on the bearing itself that points to the proper direction?
Or is a metal shield all there is?

 

Unfortunately, there are no orientation markings on the KOYO DU5496-5 front wheel bearing that I have seen. And what is worse, there is bad info floating around that you can press this bearing in either way. Timmy's video shows the proper bearing orientation at 26:00: Front Wheel Bearings on '97 V6 TACO 4WD 5 speed w Manual hubs | Tacoma World

 

Sand filled water will get you every time!!

I hate sand !!

Just enough water to be a pain not enough for a boat.

 

Thank you everybody for all of your responses.

 

So, I just skimmed this. Did we reach consensus? The 6-lug wheel bearing is a replace and not a repack... not a maintenance item?

When my girlfriend (now wife) and I got together in 2009, I started working on her 2002 4WD Tacoma. It's a 2.7L. I found a receipt at the time (still have it) for some work done on that vehicle in the past that said "Repack Wheel Bearings" as an item serviced. So was that guy full of it? Or did he repack this 6-lug wheel bearing?

 

How did he remove the bearing without obliterating it? On the 6 lug, when you press the hub out from the bearing, it splits the bearing. At least it has for me each time I've done it. You're left with half the bearing race literally frozen to the hub. Heat and careful cutting are about the only way I know of to remove it.

Mechanic was full of it. Guess he was thinking about the 5 lug.

 

I hate those mofoin bearings, what a royal pain in the a**. I had my rose bud to it on my 20t press (with a pipe on handle) when that thing broke free it scared my stepkid so bad he still wont go in the garage without earplugs and safety glasses

 

this is your front wheel bearing, once its assembled it is impossible to grease. They suck. If the outer race had a grease groove like most bearings of that nature, you could drill a hole through knuckle, tap it for a greasefitting and never have to teplace them...