What's needed for rear wheel bearing replacement?

[Infinitrium]

My right rear wheel bearing is getting pretty noisy so I'm going to replace it tomorrow. What do I need to replace it? Obviously I need the bearing itself, but is there anything else? Is it ok to reuse the old cotter key? How much do I tighten everything down?

[CryptokiD]

well i have never actually done any work on a festiva bearing because i swapped out my festiva stock suspension for aspire parts without actually doing any real festiva suspension r&r.
last weekend i rebuilt my entire suspension brakes and wheel bearings. im talkin the whole shebang, i even made brand new custom hard lines from the master cylinder back, incorporating my own custom design. there was nothing wrong with my stock hard lines but i did not like the way the stockers are set up by the factory so i mimicked a early porsche setup using 1 single hardline going to the rear instead of the stock setup which uses 2 rear lines. afterall, 2 lines have tice the volume of 1.

i dont know for sure about festiva bearings but on the aspire setup its pretty easy. i would imagine they are very similar.

if youre rear bearings are noisy and you are sure it isnt youre tyres or brakes, they are probably not greased very well, or the grease is gone. you can probably just pull it all apart, inspect the bearings, and if they need replacment then do it. but you can probably just clean out the hub and repack them. thats what i did and it worked great.

you start off by pulling the hub cover off the brake drum. then pull the cotter pin, the axle nut cover, and finally the axle nut. then you can pull the ouyter bearing and clean/inspect it..
telling you how to inspect a wheel bearing and its races in the hub is beyond the scope of my time sitting here typing. try an internet search or pick up a haynes manual.

next put the axle nut back on the axle and give the brake drum a hard yank. if you do it right it will pull the inner bearing and seal off in one motion. then proceed to inspesct those parts and if they need replacing, do it. i would mention at this time that the rear wheel bearing seals cost about $3 each and even if the originals look good you should replace them. the parts are cheap and its worth it. the bearings themselves dont cost much either, you should be able to replace all 4 bearings and both seals for under $50.

as this point inspect the bearing races in the hub. once again consult an internet search or haynes manual for proper inspection techniques.

messing with the rear wheel bearings is an incredibly easy thing to do. no special tools are required, just basic hand tools.

installation is the reverse of tear down, and at this time i would like to mention that if you are going to do any wheel bearing work, you might as well rebuild the rear brakes at the same time. wheel cylinder kits cost $3 each, and a set of shoes run about $15.

you might as well rebuild the whole wheel bearing and rear brake system all at one time because if you open it up for one thing, all the rest are right there staring at you and are not hard to do. you can literally rebuild the rear end for under $75 and less than 6 hours of work. that is of course assuming you dont need youre drums machined, which should cost about $10 each.

[Infinitrium]

Well, I got it done just a few minutes ago. I replaced the outer bearing and that was it. I didn't know how the grease seal comes out, so I left the old one on. Hope it won't cause trouble. I got it all ready to put back together then I realized that I forgot how it actually goes back together so I had to take a look at the other side to see how it all goes back in place. Hopefully I didn't screw anything up but knowing my limited mechanical skills there's a chance that I did. If anything, it would have been not enough grease in the bearing or on the spindle, or an overtightened bearing nut. Time will tell...

[Infinitrium]

Hmm... Are the dustcaps supposed to be warm to the touch after driving for 10 minutes? The drums themselves are quite warm, maybe the dustcaps absorbed some heat?

[CryptokiD]

dustcaps dont make any heat. they can absorb heat from brakes and bearings though.

as long as they are not burning hot its probably fine.

[KIADOHC]

Whats the torque spec. to tighten the rear wheel spindle nut? Thanks in advance