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Wheel bearings

aaronh

NAXJA Forum User
Location
arkansas
I have a 90 Wagoneer 4wd does it have wheel bearings or just axle bearings my local autozone said they dont have wheel bearings
 
Yes, inner and outer held in a carrier. unless you have a press I would reccomend taking carrier to a shop and let them remove and replace for a small fee.
Carrier located between hub and rotor

Need to do mine soon too
 
The usual practice is to replace the whole unit. It is possible to take them apart and get new bearings pressed in, but the whole units are available. Do some searching here and I think you'll find some discussions of different brands and their merits.
 
Your part guy isnt very good, you have Wheel bearings.
 
I'm with the "hub" guy....replace the whole unit hub. It takes a hell of a press to replace the bearings individually...so I've learned.
 
Just to give you an idea of how well they are pressed together, I once pulled my broken axleshafts out and drove to work. I started to hear a clunking so I drove across town to the local 4x4 shop. The Shop owner asked if I had left the stub shafts in to hold the unit bearings together, and when I said no, he was very surprised. I then drove back home and put the stub shaft in to hold it together, the clunking stopped.

All in all I drove about 20 miles with nothing holding it together. Stupid mistake? yes. Dangerous? yes. Those unit bearings are pretty good though.
 
As some of us have found out accidentally, it is possible to pull one of those units apart with a slide hammer, if it is stuck in the knuckle and the axle shaft nut is off. that suggests that if you actually want to disassemble one, it might be possible to do this on purpose. To avoid having to reassemble it to get the seized portion out, it would require that you remove it whole or get it well loosened from the knuckle first. Then bolt it back down, remove the nut, and slam away. You would still, of course, have to get out the bearing races. I'm speculating, but it should be possible to use heat to remove them, since it doesn't matter if you destroy them. You could then install new bearings and seal, get them reasonably well pressed together, reinstall into the knuckle and use the axle nut in lieu of a press to do the final seating.
 
I'm doing this job on my truck now, and I have an incredibly stupid question, What size is the axle nut. I put a piece of string along the face and picked up and 1-1/4 socket since it seemed pretty close, but I was wrong :( . So I need to hit up the parts store tomorrow but I remember there being around 5 or 6 different sizes for axle sockets and I really rather not buy all of them!

Thanks for the help!

-Pat
 
Phager said:
I'm doing this job on my truck now, and I have an incredibly stupid question, What size is the axle nut. I put a piece of string along the face and picked up and 1-1/4 socket since it seemed pretty close, but I was wrong :( . So I need to hit up the parts store tomorrow but I remember there being around 5 or 6 different sizes for axle sockets and I really rather not buy all of them!

Thanks for the help!

-Pat
for some reason 36mm comes to my mind..... If you hit the search button I know it was discussed before.
 
BTW hows it going Aaron? I should make it up there sometime this winter. I am working in Turkey till December or January. Then I will need a week or 2 to install all of the new goodies this trip is paying for.
 
Phager said:
I'm doing this job on my truck now, and I have an incredibly stupid question, What size is the axle nut. I put a piece of string along the face and picked up and 1-1/4 socket since it seemed pretty close, but I was wrong :( . So I need to hit up the parts store tomorrow but I remember there being around 5 or 6 different sizes for axle sockets and I really rather not buy all of them!

Thanks for the help!

-Pat

The local sears hardware store was having a clearance on their sockets, guess they are going to all laser engraved ones, I picked up 12 1/2" sockets, all above 1" in both metric and sae for like $1.25 ea plus some others, spent $50 but walked out with 28 sockets in various sizes for the tool box. You might want to walk thru sears and look at their clearance racks, it got me some ones I've rarely needed.
As for seperating the knuckle from the hub I used an air hammer with a blind type socket that fit over the bolts, backed them out about halfway and gave each bolt a bzzzzt and it got that thing off in under a minute. Was replacing the universals on the shafts of the TJ, the cleaned up the surfaces with a 3M wheel chucked into a drill, thin coat of copper antiseize and back together. The only touchy part was guiding the axle shafts back in and not messing up the seals.
 
36mm or 1-7/16"
 
It's a Metric Nut, I was going to say either 36 or 38 mm but looks like 36 is the one.
 
goodburbon said:
Rich what thread were you reading when you decided to reply?

It was just a comment on increasing your tool stash so you have all the right sized sockets and never have to ask 'what size' so you can run out to the store to buy one... :D
 
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