greasing the front wheel bearings?

[bobstad]

again I did a search and am surprised I didn't find anything.

"<front wheel bearings>"

I'm wondering how difficult a job greasing the front wheel bearings is on my '91 Festiva L five-speed and if I could handle doing it myself? The previous owner told me he'd just serviced them before I bought the car with 85,000 miles, but he'd been a jet helicopter mechanic in the Coast Guard. I now have 130,000 miles and figure I should make sure this is done sometime soon.

I've replaced the driver's side half shaft on the transaxle so am sort of able to get around in that area with at least limited competence.

My Haynes manual says special tools are needed to get the bearing out of the steering knuckle and recommends taking the job to a shop; but the Ford manual has a real thorough discussion of how to do the job. The only problem is all of the specialised tools they say are necessary and I'm wondering if I could fake it with much simpler resources and some ingenuity and sensitivity.

Also, "darkdan" says if I use "synthetic NLGI #2 grease" instead of "all purpose #1"(like the NAPA high temp for use with disc brakes I've used on wheel bearings, etcetera?) that this will last much longer, but I'm wondering if that will mean I might have to change the pre-load spacer due to the grease having a different enough thickness and/or viscosity or whatever compared to what is on the bearings now?(and are those varied thickness spacers hard to come by; at Ford I'd guess?)

And what are some brand names of that synthetic NLGI #2 grease and where is it obtainable?(and affordabley so, etc?)

[Damkid]

i think the only way to grease your wheel bearings is to take out the axle, then the wheel bearing to grease them

in my opinion, for the price of them, i personally would wait until the bearing is no good and just replace them, too much work just to save a few bucks

[bobstad]

having one go out is not much fun or worse

-quote-

in my opinion, for the price of them, i personally would wait until the bearing is no good and just replace them, too much work just to save a few bucks

-unquote-

Hey "Damnkid" are you following me around waiting till I get stuck alongside the road somewhere* so you can help me put in new bearings?(when I don't have enough money to pay a shop to do it)

The last time I had a wheel bearing go out was in '71 driving from north of Seattle to Denton, TX(via camp Pendleton near San Diego) in January in my '67 Mustang on the rear axle and a friend of mine had to hop a fence and break into the Weed, CA airport late at nite to use a phone to call a tow truck when there was a foot of snow on the ground and it was cold as hell.(I'm currently living on a fixed income due to the effects of "congenital/idiopathic" and juvenile spinal diseases-sorry I can't fix one for you too maybe?)

Anyway I think if properly lubricated those bearings should last almost indefinitely. Where do you get your intelligence?(mine is 40 proof or more; the occassional bottle of wine, etc.)

*I did get bailed out by a younger fellow in Tillamook, OR after bending a connecting rod driving through high water December '01 that got sucked into the air-cleaner who I sold my Festiva to for a dollar and bought it back from seven months later after he'd fixed it for $740 though this method is not one I'm overly excited about.(I'd flagged him down pulling away from the curb in a red Festiva going to pay the tow company who were being kind enough to let me give them my car after the local wreckers wouldn't take it and getting the lecture about "disposable cars" etc.)

[bobstad]

Haynes vs. Ford, etc.

BTW I don't always trust those Haynes manuals since having a '66 VW squareback and managing to accomplish something they said was a near impossibility that wasn't particularly complex or difficult. I remember they'd made a cynical joke about anyone unbalanced enough to attempt such a feat and I think they were simpley so ham-handed they were constricted by the inadequacies of their paws.

There was a butcher living upstairs whose power steering pump I changed for him on some kind of Ford sedan simpley because his hands were so work gnarled he couldn't get to things very easily; he returned the favor when I was changing my front half-shaft and couldn't get the axle nut off by suggesting I stand on the 3/4 breaker bar then he used a five pound sledge hammer I'd found somewhere to tap the breaker bar which loosened the nut in a jiffy.

[Damkid]

Re: having one go out is not much fun or worse

Hey "Damnkid" are you following me around waiting till I get stuck alongside the road somewhere* so you can help me put in new bearings?(when I don't have enough money to pay a shop to do it)

if you listen to your car very carefully you will know when one is about to go on you, and if you hear one going bad then you can spend the 5 bucks to get another one, and drive your car to where it needs to be to fix it yourself[/quote]

[25Horseplay]

The front wheel bearings are a PITA, the hubs are pressed together. and you HAVE to make sure you don't mix them up side to side. There is a shim in between the bearings that is a specific size. The whole procedure for replacing them is only in the factory manual. There were 21 different size shims available. I learned this the hard way, My wheel bearings made more noise after I did them than they did before!

[bobstad]

&quot;the koan not the cone.&quot;(two scoops please?)

Everyone is probabley right here, but I get such a charge from actually accomplishing something difficult on a vehicle that functions properly when I'm done. Any such opprotunity is like counting coup' and in that way is tempting to think about-probabley while more important considerations are at hand.

I think one of the great experiences of owning a car is when I find a hardworking professional who feels the same way glad to let me know all about what I'm trying to do because they appreciate not having to do it themselves.

[Pgh5spd]

Brian's right about the shims. The hub is pressed into the steering knuckle and you need either a press, or a factory tool, or a brass drift to get them apart. There is a great deal of satisfaction in doing it yourself, and it CAN be done as a shadetree operation (tools needed: brass drift/dowel, vise and mallet/hand sledge), but what I'd suggest is that you get a pair of steering knuckles from a junkyard and work on them since the first time takes a long time. Chances are probably better than even that you'll need brake rotors before you need to pack the bearings, and since you have to separate the hub from the knuckle to replace the rotor, you could have a set on the shelf for when that time comes.

I've posted before on how I get them apart and I think I saved the file somewhere. Does that sound like something you'd be interested in tackling?

[WmWatt]

I'd also like to know how to do this at home.
There may be some creative way of making a frame and using the weight of the car to force the hub apart and back together again. If someone could work it out others would benefit.

[5.0zone]

Yes, they are a PITB to grease, but waiting till you HAVE to replace them is a bigger PITB. I know from experience.
Make sure you get both inner and out seals before you start.
I made my own very simple tool for pressing out the hub.
Give me a couple of days and I will write up how to do this and hopefully get some pictures.

Jeff

[bobstad]

pickle fork tools almost imperative...for me at least.

I remember changing the driver's side half-shaft that I'd had a set of pickle fork like things I'd picked up somewhere and which were very useful that neither of the manuals had mentioned. For seperating ball joints from their mountings I think and that are three different sizes of wedges with a slot in the middle with a long rod on the other end to hammer on. Mine are cheap ones though that are very adequate.

If I hadn't had these and if my neighbor the butcher I'd helped with his power steering pump hadn't shown me how to get the axle nut off I'd of never been able to the job. The weird thing is getting the reputation of being a mechanical genius when in fact I'm just a poor slob who can't afford to pay someone when its cheaper to buy the tools and do it myself.(and usually better work)

I remember when I changed the half-shaft I'd felt guilty at not going for the bearings too when I had everything apart and was into it as things looked pretty simple from that point and perspective. This "multi-tasking" way of life as its now getting to be called or "DIY" is kind of schizophrenic as I find I'm always lost at first having forgotten almost everything while involved in some other aspect of life. Getting a different vehicle is really stressful and then when a person finally knows and understands everything about maintainence and all the specific intricacies the thing is about ready for recycling or another owner.(I sold my '66 VW squareback to Todd Molynuex who was son of the criminal couple depicted in the book and movie THE FRENCH CONNECTION born after those events both of whose parents died when he was young and who works on all his own rigs and is a local music promoter and aspiring Latin percussionist in Spokane...his Dad knew Tommy Ivo who built a four engine Chrysler hemi dragster that was famous)

[Pgh5spd]

I know what you mean about finally understanding how to service a car, just as it reaches the end of the road. That's one of the reasons I keep driving Festivas.

For preliminaries in getting the steering knuckle off, getting the hub off the lower balljoint can usually be done without a pickle fork - just tap a chisel into the pinch slot - it doesn't take much, and if you've doused the top with some oil it's usually even easier to get it to come off. For the tie-rod end, once you've loosened the nut, you can break the connection by beating on the end of the arm (the arm that the tapered end of the tie-rod goes into) with a hammer while prying upward with a bar. Some are harder than others, but it's never failed. Taper connections are very tight but they do break free this way. With very ornery ones, occasionally tap on the end of the tie rod, but do not beat on it.

Once you have the knuckle off, put the top end - the one with two bolt holes - into a vise. You'll need a friend with a bar that just fits into the balljoint hole to hold that end steady while you hold a piece of BRASS dowel/barstock against the hole the halfshaft spline fits into. It needs to be larger than the hole, but not a lot larger. Now, while your friend holds his end steady, beat on the dowel with a mallet/hand sledge. It's a tight fit, but the hub/rotor assembly should slowly be driven out of the bearing. When you get them apart, MAKE SURE YOU DON'T LOSE THE SPACER RING. You can clean the outer bearing while it's still on the hub - use multiple changes of solvent to get all the dirt out - then inspect for any spalling. Check the race too - races usually indicate bearing failure before it's evident on the rollers - and re-pack it if all looks OK - you won't be able to replace the outer seal without pressing the bearing off of the hub, but I've never had trouble with that (pressing the bearing off tends to destroy it). The inner seal can easily be replaced, and once it's removed, the inner bearing comes out and can be cleaned/repacked in normal fashion.

Rotor removal: how to get the rotor off the hub? Super easy! Just bolt the hub to the front of a wheel from the back (so the rotor is on top of the wheel). Now you have plenty enough leverage from the wheel to put a 6-point socket (asking for trouble to use a 12-point!) on the 4 bolts that attach the rotor to the hub. I always feel that Festivas were engineered for the rigors of the Third World, and this is where you can really feel like you're working on it as if you're in the Third World, but I think it works faster than any other method anyone might come up with.

There's not much extra meat on Festiva rotors, but sometimes you can get one cutting out of a rotor. 11mm is the minimum cutting thickness. In case you do take your rotors to be resurfaced, make sure to point out that the mating surface (the true part that gets chucked into the turning lathe) is the outside of the rotor. This is particularly counter-intuitive now when most rotors just slip on and mate to the hub the other way. I found this out the hard way when I took a bunch of salvageable rotors to my favorite machine shop, and he let a new guy do them. Result was half of them were warped since they were chucked to the inside surface - the one that faces you when you unbolt the rotor - which doesn't need to be true.

Reassembly: how does the outer seal seat itself when all of this is pressed back together? Don't worry about it. It just does. (If you put the hub & knuckle together (don't forget the spacer ring!) and just tap lightly, that's usually enough to get the halfshaft end in and let the nut do the rest.

Double reminder: if you forget the spacer ring, the bearings will fail because you will overtighten the assembly. The spacer ring keeps this from happening, and is the reason why with new bearings you have to go thru a setup to arrive at the right spacer thickness.

I've done this numerous times since my first Festiva brake job, ~1993, and never had any bearing trouble afterward. I only replaced bearings once, before I understood the variable spacer ring business, and got lucky - they worked out OK.

Hope that helps :wink:

John

[WmWatt]

Thanks for posting the details. I've saved a copy on diskette for future reference (MS Explorer: File, SaveAs) It copies all the postings on one subject to an HTML file.

[Deathshead]

looks like when the front bearings crap out its time for the aspire swap!
mine are making some noise up front, not howling just yet, but im just going to do the aspire swap, much easier for wheel bearings and brake rotors.

[bobstad]

Aspire is sure the word for it...

That Aspire swap has seemed a tempting idea to me also for the improved ease of servicing and also for being able to run wider tires which will greatly improve the ride and handling.(I have 13' rims and 155-80R13 tires are the widest I can use without the rear tires rubbing on the struts, but the one time I drove a few miles when this was proven the wider tires were like a dream I'd never imagined before and the improvement of the 13" set-up I have now over stock 12" was incredible too)

With my financing I think the probablity of my going with the stock Festiva brakes, etc. is still a better than even bet.(at least at the upcoming service interval)

I really appreciate the advice about doing the stock hubs. Once through and I'm probabley an expert. My final question right now in mind is if I were to use a high-milage synthetic grease would this change the size of spacer required since grease itself has thickness and which can vary depending upon what its made out of; etc.(?)

Are the different sizes of spacers still available is one thought? I'd guess a person might have to check around various Ford dealers and when I'd gone to them seeking a replacement for the Idle Speed Control-Bypass Air device they told me they were obsolete, but were able to find one or two still available doing a nation-wide computer search that cost over $400 each so I'd imagine finding a selection of spacers might be similar.

There is one mechanic in one of the two local dealerships who has worked on Festivas and treats me decently over the phone, but he'd never tried to grease the front wheel bearings of one and had no idea of what I was talking about.(their service department gave me a quote for the job, but with no idea what was actually involved or if they could even accomplish it)