Wheel Bearing Replacement

My driver's side front wheel bearing is starting to feel a little rough/noisy. Time to replace it. I'm not surprised since I've got 268,000 miles on the truck & my bearings have never been replaced. My question is for all the 1st Gen guys who've had to replace their front wheel bearings. Did you do the work yourself or did you pay a garage to do it? If you paid to have it done, how much did it cost you? Thinking about doing it myself since it seems pretty straight forward. Unfortunately I don't own a press & don't want to buy one just to do 1 bearing. Have any of you tried to replace the bearings using one of the wheel bearing removal kits that are sold at harbor freight? I wish I could just buy one of those pre-assembled hub/bearing units & bolt them in like the 2nd & 3rd Gen guys can!

 

I removed my spindle and took it to a shop with a heavy duty press. You can't get the bearings out unless you have a press or a special tool. Auto zone does not have that tool in my area.

I paid the shop $50 to press out the old and press in the new one.

 

I've heard some Napa autoparts can do them

 

I use a puller to remove the hub and a press for the bearing and all reassembly. No experience with the HF pullers, suspect they might be on the light side, in design and quality. These guys sometimes take all the tools plus all the tricks in the book. Heat, cool, penatrants, hammer blows, profanity and so on.
Find a shop that is familiar with the specific job on a 1st gen 6 lug Taco. Shops and dealers screw this up all the time.

 

I have read that the bearings require a decently powerful press. Some have said in the 40 ton range.

 

Yep, thinking removing the spindle & taking it to a shop to do the press work might be my best bet. A shop just quoted me $700 to do the entire job. Yikes! Should I be replacing the inner & outer dust seals, too?

 

I've read stuff like this, too. I've also read some people having no problems using 12 ton presses. Probably has a lot to with whether the truck has lived in rust-prone areas or not.

 

A 12 ton press will do it. Here's a video I made helping a buddy of mine do a Manual Hub Conversion on his 3rd Gen 4runner. You'll understand what's entailed with the press work after watching the video. The ADD hubs are a little different but how to accomplish the press work is similar.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/TZ2sOfVrnhU

 

I actually found your vid when I first started noticing the bearing roughness. If I owned a press or had a friend with a press, I'd do the whole job myself. If I lived in the Bay Are, I would hit you up for use of your press, HA! As it is, I think taking the spindle to a shop to do the press work might be my best option. Just need to find a shop that I trust with the work. Your videos are great Timmy!

 

we are all assuming your truck is 4X4... is it?

not being a wise ass... 2wd maybe 1/2 hr per side, 4 X 4 a bit more.

 

Yes. It's a 4X4

 

Have fun if you do it yourself. Did mine with a 12 ton press and a portable puller from Harbor Freight. Here is a pic of portable puller I used. Went ahead and did the tundra brake mod. while I was at it.

 

slight thread hi-jack... are those stock rims? how many threads do the lug nuts catch before the lug hits the rim? I had to put longer studs on mine.

 

How do you know when a wheel bearing is going bad exactly? My driver side wheel feels rough and it sometimes is rough when I turn. I’m leaning towards this issue may be the case.

Edit: I only have 125k on the clock.

 

Not stock rims. Helos rims. catch about 1/2" of threads before hitting rim. Stock studs.

 

Sometimes the sound and crunchy feeling in a bad wheel bearing may be exacerbated by steering in one direction or another. Other than that, here's some methods of diagnosing.

Lol half the time I'm about to link one of your videos I scroll and find you beat me to it. All I can think of is those State Farm insurance videos. Next time I'm stumped on how to do something on my truck I'm just going to yell "Like a good neighbor, @Timmah! is there!"

 

NO, no no no.

Its "Like a good member, @timmah is there!"

 

lol you tagged the wrong @Timmah! - the other guy hasn't been on since 2012 and will leave you stranded like Bob's Back Alley Super Saver Discount Car Insurance (no offense guys named Bob).

 

Gahh...

 

I think this means I'm on the forums too much. I bounce between here and T4R.org reading, learning and trying to help out where I can. I also want more people to find our YouTube channel so they can benefit from the videos we've made. So, I post links to our videos when the opportunity presents itself and I appreciate you plugging them for us as well. We have around 3200 subscribers to date on our channel but I know there's got to be exponentially more 1st Gen Tacoma owners and 3rd Gen 4runner owners who do their own wrenching and don't know our channel exists. The more people we can help out the better.

We do make some money off the advertising but it's going to be a long, long, long time (probably never) before the time we put in and our expenses are commensurate with how much we're making. I've spent thousands on tools over the last year and a half but my tool buying has slowed down quite a bit because I've now amassed a pretty good collection. The advertising revenue was never our main focus anyway. When I posted my first video to YouTube, I didn't even know people made a living off their YouTube channel. I just thought YouTube was a way to share whatever you wanted with the masses and not actually a way to make money.

The time invested is actually the big one though. Before we make a video, I first do research through the factory service manual, reading write-ups and watching videos. When we do a job, the filming takes a while because we have to make sure the lighting is right and we're getting a good shot. The final part is the editing and this is a very labor intensive process. I use to let my buddy Sean do the whole thing, but since I have more free time than him, I now go through all the clips first and get the content and flow I'd like to see and then Sean takes the project and polishes it up adding cool features and making it nicer to watch. I'll give you an example of the time investment just for the editing on our most recent job. We did the Timing Belt/Water Pump job on Sean's rig. It was a couple day affair because we ran into too many hurdles to finish it in one day. When I got all the video clips together, there were 300 clips to go through. I honestly don't know how the hell we had 300 clips, but we did. I didn't count, but I must have spent around 15-20 hours going through all those clips to edit it down to a 2 hour video. Now the project is in Sean's hands and he's going to spend a ton of time on it as well. The final time investment is answering questions on our YouTube channel and also posting the videos and answering questions on forums like this one. So, what I'm trying to say is this is a labor of love.

The one criticism we hear the most is our videos are too long. I know our videos are very long, but it's only because we want our videos to be as comprehensive as possible to give the viewer the best chance at success with the job. When we make a video, we're not gearing it towards the experienced mechanic who only needs the outline of what needs to be done and then they're off to turning wrenches. We gear our videos to the beginning DIYer level so anyone with the time, desire to learn, and the necessary tools can be successful. I figure if somebody really wants to know how to do a repair or mod, they'll be willing to sit through one of our videos. If they don't have the patience, they can always look for shorter videos or write-ups but they're not going to get the detail our videos offer. But, to each his own I reckon.

Happy Wrenching My First Gen Tacoma Brothers!

Timmy the Toolman