My rear wheel bearings hi-low squeal is getting loud enough I think it's time to replace them. From looking over threads, and the PMB videos, it doesn't look possible without taking the swing arm off the car.

I don't find anything here with removal/installation info and without doing a new alignment.

CAn you give me the in's and out's of removing the swing arm and reinstalling it later. How do I mark and relocate the shims to keep the alignment the same?

Appreciate the help!

It's not hard to do it on the car.

1 While still on the ground, remove the rear hub caps. Remove the large axle nut on each side. Jack up car. Secure on Jackstands.

2 Remove wheels, brake calipers, discs and axles.

3 Drive out the stub axles using a socket with an OD slightly smaller than the bearing ID.

4 Remove the bearing retainers.

5 Drive out the bearings using a socket slightly smaller than the bearing OD.

6 Clean, derust and debur the the bearing cavity. Coat with antisieze compound.

7 PULL new bearing into hub using socket used in step 5 against the outer race only. Do not put any pressure on the bearing except on the outer race. Rig a puller with 1/2" threaded rod, nuts, washers plates. Some imagination is needed here.

8 Reinstall the bearing retainer plate.

9 PULL hub into bearing using a socket the size of the bearing inner race. Do not put any pressure on the bearing except on the inner race.

11 Install wheel hub nuts, tighten as much as you can for now.

12 Reinstall axles, discs, calipers and wheels.

13 Put car on ground. Torque the wheel hub nuts to spec, reinstall cotter pins. Torque wheels, reinstall the hub caps, go for a drive.

I've done it both ways and having said that I think it's much easier off the car. Besides there is a lot of tidying up AND crack inspection that you can do whilst the arms are off. The shims are a no brainer. You will have 1 - 4 shims on each side. Don't mix 'em up because they are most likely different thickness'. Doesn't matter which order you stack them in and there is only one way they will fit with the notches/holes. It's scary banging those bearings although I've done it w/o incident.

The shims are for camber and as long as you put the same ones back on the side they came from, you're good.

However you *MUST* reset toe before the car can be considered safe.
String, lasers, whatever - get the toe right, lest you spend a lot of time looking at where you've been...

Gee, it all sounds sooo easy. This is my daily driver so I have to have it planned out with all the stuff ahead of time and done in one day.

That's why I was thinking doing it on the car was quicker. Thanks.

Any other quick tips for dummys is appreciated!

IF you freeze the bearing to make it fit better....do you freeze the hub to make it easier to pull into the bearing>>>>?

The advantage of taking it off is you can leave the CV's axels installed and only have to remove axcel bolt, the 3 bolts on the out side and the one bolt on the inside. Leave everything else hanging, calipers and such!

Much less grunting that way!!

Bill - if I was still in town I'd come over and help.
When we did the same job on Scooter in the shop it was still a MAJOR effort.
Would suggest you locate a loner vehicle for a few days as this is not an in and out in one day job. Especially when you should get it re-aligned after the process.Good luck.

It's a lot easier if you remove the trailing arm from the car. Look in your Haynes manual. You don't have a Haynes manual? OK, get a Haynes manual and if you can, get one of these.

I think it is easier when left on the car. The arm is big and heavy. Best to leave big and heavy things alone.

If this is your daily driver, I'd do one bearing at a time. Pick the worse one by rotating the tires and determine which bearing is worse.

My vote is to remove the swing arms. This can be done without disconnecting the CVs from the trans.

If you keep the arms on the car, you have to break open the trans side CV and replace the seal.

I freeze the bearing and warm up the arm with a heat gun (or hair dryer). If the mating is done quickly, the bearing should drop right in.

Then I freeze the hub and heat up the arm+bearing. Quickly mating the 2 will lessen the force needed to pull the hub on the bearing. I used a similar setup to Elliot's. I made mine from an all-thread from my local hardware store along with a couple of washers that I welded together.