Bearings again and again

[bcole]

Hey everybody,

ive had this great 92 festiva for a couple of years now, right after i got it i did a bunch of front end work and while getting new rotors i had a mechanic push in some new wheel bearings in. about a year later humming lead me to have another mechanic replace both front wheel bearings. now another year later i hear the same humming developing again, i think its in the front, but cant tell which side.

1. how do i tell which bearing is shot?
2 i've heard of this bearing press you can mount right on the hub, where can i buy or rent one of these?
3. i've been hesitant of doing wheel bearings myself, for im quite the amateur mechanic, but it seems to me the to prior mechanics didnt do any better than i would have.

thanks

[GenevaDirt]

well if the original guy left out the spacers.....that could be why they went so fast and then the next guy didn't have spacers to use so he didn't know to put them in. You may not have an issue putting the bearings in yourself but if it is missing the spacers and they are needed....you will not fair any better then the other guys.
You may want to get a pair of hubs from a junk yard and fix them up and just swap them out once your done. They will have the spacers that need to be in them...provided they were never worked on.

[bcole]

can i get spacers with new bearings, or do i have to find them?

[GenevaDirt]

you have to have the tool to figure out which spacer you need....there are numerous ones it could be. Unless you take it to someone that can determine that, the easiest thing would be to start with a set of hubs that you know have not been apart yet.

[Amos]

http://www.fordfestiva.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27624

Useful information!

[Safety Guy]

Thanks Amos, and I agree this should be stickied at the top of the repair forum!

Karl

[Sandm849]

Yea def should be stickied. the first time I did a set of front bearings was unaware of the selectable shim....what a design. Definitely my pet peeve of the car. Honestly who does that!! lol A lot of people are unaware of this, especially if they aren't familiar of the cars.

[Safety Guy]

Fortunately, the Aspire and early (to '05) Rio knuckles both use the same size bearings and shims, so these should be in production for a while, and Kia dealers should be able to do a good job if you can't do it yourself.

Just make sure that any mechanic knows the procedure. I recommend printing Amos' pages out and insisting the mechanic sees and understands them!

Karl

[Amos]

I printed it out and got it done at a ford dealership after buying 2 of all the spacers available from Kia..

You don't need to do what I did... Get #7 through #14...

If you're completely missing the spacers.. take it to a ford dealership, there's a special tool that shops don't have

I also wish I could edit my post in that thread!