Townace 1993 rear wheel bearing replacement NO PRESS required.

[karachaffee]

I am in the process of replacing a rear wheel bearing on my 1993 Townace and am doing this without a hydraulic press. To wit:

1) get vehicle in the air with tire removed. Drain differential oil.
2) pull brake drum , remove front shoe, undo two retaining bolts to remove E-brake. Undo brake line .
3) I put the drum back on the studs BACKWARDS and put the lug nuts back on . This gives you a place to whack the whole assembly to jar the
old bearing out of its pocket and it may take a couple of good swings.
4) pull whole axle out.

6) I used a cheap Dremel tool to cut the wheel bearing off of the axle. The Dremel thin cutoff wheels are stupendous in cutting through hard metal ! You can use a small scale or a mark on a toothpick to watch your depth. The bearing thickness is about 3/16" thick in the middle and is about 1/4" thick at the edges of the race. ****IMPORTANT****** Wrap a layer of metal around the diameter of the seal collar and tape it in place. I am right handed and the Dremel will kick up when the wheel grabs in the slot and it would damage the collar in an instant. **** See photos .127211272212723 . When I felt that the slots ( one on each side 180 degrees apart ) thusly cut were generally deep enough , I put a cold chisel in the slot and began to whack. The bearing cracked open --Voila! I managed to cut the race off and did not nick the axle, although this probably would not harm anything. You cannot get all the way up to the sealing collar with your slot, but if you get enough material cut , you don't have to. The cold chisel with crack it anyway. You can cut all the way through the race at the bottom and you can propagate the crack from there.

7) I made a seal puller out of a piece of steel stock 1" x 1/2" . It has a 5/16 " tapped hole on one side and it is 2.410" wide . The ears that go behind the seal are about 1/8" thick. Not shown is a bar with a hole in it that bridges the mouth of the axle tube. So you get your 4" long bolt through your bar and get the puller bar nestled in behind the seal and thou crankest on the bolt with ye olde box wrench and the seal gets pulled.1272412726

8) I will follow up this post with the homemade mechanical puller that will extract the sealing collar soon.
12725

[Burntboot]

The best way to remove that sealing collar is the same way you did the bearing, grind a groove and deploy the cold chisel

Trying to pull or press it off runs the risk of bending the axle

[karachaffee]

Burntboot ! Thanks for the advice . When I got the new bearings , they came with the seal collars , so I decided to forgo making a puller and take your advice and simply grind the old collar off. I ground about 7/8 of the way through on one side and about 3/4 the way through at 180 degrees--and a couple of whacks with the cold chisel popped it quite loose. If you don't have a Dremel you better invest ! The bearings I was able to get are double row Nachi (Japan) bearings of the type 35BCD08-2LR NAC . The bearing looks nice, the collar is not as nicely made as the old Koyo , but should work well enough. Here are some photos of the work.. Thank you all !127331273412735

[karachaffee]

So,I had everything ready--the axle was frozen, recently from my refrigerator and the bearing and sealing collar were at 180F from the oven. The bearing tapped nicely into place and the collar was not having any of it. I had purchased two sets of Nachi bearings with collars. So I measured the axle diameter at about 1.387" and the sealing collar at about 1.383" such that it looks like there is between .003" to .004" of interference fit .
Silly me for thinking that the parts would fit. SO I will pull the stuck collar off the axle and take both collars to be honed open by probably .002" such that the net interference is between .0015" and .0022" or so. It is my inexperience with press fitting parts that got this to happen. But I will say that with .004" interference , I would not even try it on a hydraulic press. :pissed:

[originalkwyjibo]

The service manual specifies heating the bearing retainer to 150C/302F. Realistically this is a bearing retainer first and seal collar second hence the need for the tight interference fit and are not intended to be reused. Keep in mind that when you go into a corner at speed, the tight fit of that collar is the only thing keeping your axle from walking out of the much less tight fitting bearing. You may want to reconsider opening up the tolerence.
By the way, most machine shops will shove these on with a 20 ton press and no heat. I have personally done them with and without heat with no known failures but prefer to heat the retainers in oil as specified.

[karachaffee]

Hi Original Kwyjibo,
Thank you for the advice. Well the retainer is not on very far and I think I can pull it off and take it to a shop. I don't have a press here .
Thanks again for the tech info . I don't have a complete manual and am new to all of this !
Cheers,
Kara:dance2:

[originalkwyjibo]

A press is usually needed even if you heat the retainer. You may be able to take it to a shop and just have them push it on the rest of the way without risking damage by trying to remove it first.

[karachaffee]

Hi All,
I located a friend of a friend who has an H-frame press. We put a little oil on the axle and pressed the collar home. When it bottomed out , it gave a satisfying ping. I get frustrated when I don't have the exact tool. I would get a press, but its so large and its a tool I might use once in two years , etc. etc... Well you all saved me from disaster.
Thanks again! :wave2: