I have a bad wheel bearing on my driver side and also Ive got to replace the axle seal on the tranny on the same side. Ive replaced a seal before on my 87 max and Ive got a seal puller, so that shouldnt be hard. The dealer and Napa want $23 for the seal. Does that sound like a good price? I thought that the transmission seals were much cheaper than that. I dont know how much the wheel bearing is going to cost but I would like to buy the whole hub if its not too expensive. Is it hard to replace the hub. I mean ive taken the cv joint out before on that side what else is there left to disasemble because I would like to do it myself and save the money that I would have to pay someone else to do it. Or would it be better to just buy the bearing and have someone press it into the hub?

 

You'll want to buy both a new hub and bearing. generally when the wheel bearing fails, it damages the hub. If you put a new bearing on an old, damaged hub, the new bearing won't last very long.
New bearing is aout $50. new hub is about $130. ouch. BUt such is life.

As for replacing it yourself, what I would do is pull the entire spindle assembly off the car and take the assy to a shop with the new bearing and hub and throw the guy $20 to press it in.

OR....
You could buy a new knuckle assembly from a junkyard and hope the bearing is in better shape than yours.. if the bearing is still good in it, you might want to just tear it down and use the hub from that knuckle along with a new bearing (either knuckle assy will work at that point- all the same, unless the car at the JY has been in a front-end wreck and then all bets are off as to whether the knuckle is straight or not.)..



$23 for a tranny seal is about right. they're not cheap. MAKE SURE you get the right one. there are 2-3-4 driver's side axle seals. You should be okay being a GXE auto with no VLSD though. it's the VLSD seal that's funky and is hard to find. the GXE Auto is the "normal" one.

 

I have both passenger and driver side knuckles with new seals and bearings, plus the seal you speak of. They may not be available for a little while b/c I have to set aside a time to take the existing auto trans from my 90 SE and slap in the 5spd. I have knuckles from the VE car to replace these. My passenger side bearing and seals have less than 10 miles on them, and the other side probably have less than 500 on them, so they are fresh and clean. Shipping would be pretty rough though, but I have little use for them once I drop the 5 spd in if you can wait for em.

 

Al to SC won't be too bad on shipping. I'd suggest you go this route assuming all of the work was done correctly. it will be easier (and cheaper) to buy these and then swap the entire knuckle and just toss your old ones.

 

sounds great! But how hard is it to seperate the ball joint from the knuckle? Or should I just separate the ball joint from the control arm and make it a little easier? But I would need the parts a.s.a.p. Ive really got to get that axle seal, everytime I park It leaks tranny fluid, and I have to add more and more. Im trying to do both jobs at the same time, because the wheel bearing noise is driving me crazy.

 

It is not hard to seperate the ball joints once you have the knuckles off the car. The fun part if you don't have an impact wrench is breaking the 36mm nut holding the axle in the assembly. They are about $15 and you can break them with some good force; I had to use a few hammer strikes when I didn't have air tools, and a big hammer would make life easy.

This may be incentive for me to start on my swap, because I have been waiting for months for the most opportune moment. I can put my car on stands , but it is parked on the street; I have no drive way. I understand the urgency with a leaking vehicle and the bearing issue; both are indeed troubling on your DD. I guess I could just go ahead and slap on the knuckles for the 5 spd and leave the axles out, which would allow me to leave the car on the ground, so the city doesn't get onto me. When do you have time to work on it again?

I might be able to do it tomorrow, which would get them to you around Tuesday I suppose, given I drop them into the mail tomorrow.

These are heavy, and probably would be around $20 per knuckle to send, according to my estimations and the UPS shipping calculator. But that lowest price had them arriving within two days........

 

i used a 1/2" ratchet and a 4-foot-long pipe as a cheater bar. greatly reduced how much force i actually had to exert... tho if it slips off get ready for a ride lol (one time it slipped off and i just started rolling down the hill next to the driveway for about 10 feet or so )

 

lol The next time I would probaly be able to work on it would be like this weekend or on monday. I will probaly go ahead and buy the axle seal, because that leak scares me being that I just replaced the tranny last week. But I can deal with the wheel bearing noise for a little longer its not too bad yet.

 

Silly Wookies....... Know matter how hard you people try to succeed with human activities, you always end up rolling around on the ground and enjoying it.

Did a shop replace the tranny? If so, they should replace and install one correctly for no charge......

 

no see the best thing was that during my rolling, i somehow managed to get my legs tangled around my metal roll-up ramp and it started rolling down the hill with me my brother was walking around the backside of the car just as it happened so he didn't see me fall, he just saw me rolling down the hill with the ramp chasing me

but yes, lately i have been using my electric impact (like this past week on nc90gxe's car to do the flywheel/clutch/oilpan/rearmain/axle seals/shifter seal) and it makes it a whoooole lot easier.

 

Also make sure you get your other suspension parts looked at. wonky suspension can really kill a bearing.... I have an oil leak and it's throwing off my suspension, already going on 2nd bearing.

 

Thanks for the advise, i too have an oil leak on the passenger side. I will have to pinpoint where its coming from after I get all the other things taken care of. I bought a new control arm off ebay and the bushings are already bad, and the funny thing is before I replaced the control arm there was no bushing noise.

 

i had bad bearings on my maxima, and it needed a seal too...it was a **** load of money for it so i just went to the junk and grabbed a use wheel hub and all

 

Thats what Im thinking about doing for the time being, But I dont want to risk having to do the same job again in a few months or so. But I did see a hub at the junk yard with some pretty decent studs and the axle still inside it, so I may go grab it with the GXE strut to make the car sit evenly again( I have one SE strut on the driver side and all GXE struts on the rest of the car, so it kinda leans more on the driver side being that it is off balance.

 

i think it'll be cheaper to grab one at the junk cuz it cost me $40 for the hub, but if i got a new wheel bearing with new seals and have them push the bearing in it would of cost me like $100....but the hub i got had no ABS so my anit-lock light is always on....no biggy

 

Yah I grabbed a hub from a 94 maxima. It was only like $20. I also took the fuel rail off with all the injectors. So I had the Hub installed( which was non ABS) along with the axle seal. I let a shop install everything because I didnt have the time to do it, and seeing a stream of tranny fluid on the ground every morning made me nervous, and also that wheel bearing was driving me crazy. I also had to replace the driver side axle. The shop had one so I told them to replace it. Now that all that is taken care of, the car rides great. I am wondering though because that axle seems to make the car ride funny at highway speeds, and it seems like I have to accelerate a little harder than before. But I will check it out this morning. When the guy pulled the driver side axle out, there was a puddle of tranny fluid that came out, maybe like 2 quarts. I grabbed one of my buckets and caught some of it. But I am hoping that the right axle was installed.

 

the hub shouldn't determine the ABS functionality.. that should be the axle joint that either has or does not have an ABS ring. unless the one you got just has nowhere to physically bolt the sensor onto.. is that what it was?

 

when i was taking off the hub to replace the wheel bearing the censor cord snapped off...it was on the knuckle spindle

 

It would be nice to get a picture of a bad hub from wheel bearing damage, so people know for future reference. There's a lot of people out there that will just continue to use the same hub because they just don't know better...

 

the best way to tell is try wobbling the hub....if it wobbles then its bad!!!..real bad!!

 

I'll see if I can dig up a bad one at home. I might still have one in my pile of junk. they make great spacers for my hydraulic press.

 

well, if somebody sees a bad hub, they would know it. it's usually blatantly obvious.
the wall looks like this:~~_~~^_~-~\/~, instead of ______________

 

I just threw away my old hub.

Best way for me to tell is if the metal is grinded / shaved to a shiny finish.

Or a Wobbly wheel

 

Little late but I know O'reilly sells the hub/wheel bearing already assembled. Probably way too expensive though.