I'm tearing down my trailing arms to bead blast and repaint as part of my resto. Arms are off the car and stripped to just control arm, bearings, and hubs. The rear bearings were replaced only a year before the car went into hibernation for 30 years so in great condition. I'm assuming these bearings will be sacrificed in the disassembly but figured I'd ask if anyone knows of a magic way to remove bearings and hubs without damaging the bearings.

Thanks.

They may come out OK if arms are removed and on a press.

On the car they have to be hammered out or pulled with a puller, which usually destroys the bearing

If they were just replaced the hubs will probably come out of the bearing pretty easily with a tool like the OTC Hub Tamer. You can "rent" these at some parts stores. The harbor freight one is the same tool just without the hub puller.

Hammering a hub out is just not needed and can actually cause runout in the hub.

Well, they were replaced and then the car sat outside for 30+ years so I'm not counting on easy extraction. I have the harbor freight set I think you are talking about:



and the reason I'm doing this now is that I just replaced rear bearings on our Honda last weekend and I have a hub/axle puller set rented free from Autozone so figured I'd get this job done on the resto before taking that set back.



I also have a decent assortment of other pullers.

Problem is I can't figure out how to set these up to pull the hub without having the axle to push against.

Can't be done without ruining the bearings. You can press them in on the outer hub shell of the bearing but you can't pull them out that way. The inner race usually stays stuck to the hub and has to be pulled off or cut off.

Well, I got one side out without much trouble. Rather than spend an hour or more building a fixture for the spindle of a puller to push against, I decided to just see what happened using the slide hammer puller. The hub came out pretty easily and the inner race stayed in the bearing. Then the bearing pulled out easily with the HF tool.

Question now is whether the bearing is usable. Spins smooth but the two inner races can be pulled apart about 1mm. I don't remember if this was normal. I just don't know if the pull might have done damage. Any thoughts on that?

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No. Slide hammer ruins the bearings but there’s no other way around it.

Now comes the FUN part. Finding wheel bearings that are worth a crap. I did mine last year and replaced one side twice because of bearing quality.

To add to that; there were several members who had early failures then someone posted some pics of new bearings inadequately greased from the factory. Slits used to but some Volvo bearings that were quite a bit less than others. Regardless, I would grease any new wheel bearings after I saw some of those pics.

I remember reading that thread. Good reminder!

It seems as though the newer bearings are not what they used to be. I had a new FAG bearing that was made in Slovakia that failed right away. It was a fairly expensive bearing and after reading up here about the problems I decided to try a cheap $18 Chinese E-Bay bearing to see if it held up any better. Its been in there for over a year and still works fine.

If you are careful you can take a pick and remove the seal on your existing bearing and remove the two race halves and inspect it. The ball bearings are held in races and it should be easy to determine if they are damaged. If they are old German bearings you could grease them and run them. That might beat installing a brand new bearing that fails right away.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Rear-Wheel-Bearing...gSmJ:rk:23:pf:0

I just followed your suggestion on the most suspect of the two bearings. Popped it open and other than the grease looking 40 years old, it looks pristine. No sign of damage on any of the races.

Dropped it in some mineral spirits to dissolve the grease off and will take pics tomorrow after they are cleaned up. Will also do the other bearing tomorrow. Swepco for grease, I assume?

Not only does this save me some coin, but also the worry of getting turd bearings.

Years ago, well actually decades ago, when I converted to 5 lug front and rear I pulled the rear hubs using a slide hammer. The bearings were fairly new and the hubs came out clean and easy, leaving the bearings intack in the rear trailing arms. I assumed the bearings were damaged in the process and was intending to replace them, even had new bearings sitting on the workbench.

I was short of time and I just put the 5 lug hubs in the old bearings just so I could move the car out of the shop, I would have customers cars to work on the next day.

The old bearings felt good,rolled smooth and silent. Of course time to pull it apart and replace the bearings ran short and I was faced with working on it over a weekend or participating in a Zone 7 autocross that weekend.

I chose the autocross figuring the bearings would last through the weekend and they did.
In fact I autocrossed regularly and drove the car almost daily for 5 years before the engine siezed.
Never any noise or play or any other sign of failure or wear.

Jim

They take the same bearings as a Boxster.


Here's a couple of YouTubes. One of them explains the factory lack of grease issue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-A5kf5pXl4w


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9P1R2clGAU

Well.... After cleaning all the old grease off the old bearings, I was able to better inspect. I found some galling on one inner race and one outer. The rest of the bearing looked perfect. I don't think this has anything to do with pulling the bearing - just normal wear. I opened the second bearing and it is much worse so I'll be replacing the pair. In looking at these, it's pretty obvious these are not the bearings I thought I had replaced. That must have been on one of the other two 914s I owned back in the day. Funny how 35 years fuzzes the memory. Bottom line here is that I think if the bearings are in good condition and don't fight you too hard on removal, they actually could be removed and reinstalled.

Now I get to play wheel bearing roulette!

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I buggered one doing a hand brake repair (911 type) was super careful and everthing came apart easily,put it back together and test drove the car had a noise that got worse very quickly....wasn't happy.
Bought a new SKF bearing which I have yet to fit,was surprised how many cars use this bearing ,the one I got was for a BMW but same number as the 914 one.