Stuck replacing wheel bearings

[ECTurboDSM]

My passenger side front wheel bearings have gone bad, and I am in the process of pulling the hub off. I've got the caliper, rotor, tie rod, and sway bar off. I've loosened the nuts on the lower strut mount and removed the nut on the lower arm ball joint. I cannot get the lower arm to seperate from the hub assembly and I have used a pry bar, and a rather large steel pipe. If anyone can give a step by step on how to get the hub assembly off and get to the wheel bearings, it would be much appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Korndogg]

hey, i can't help you with your problem.. but i was hoping you could give me a tidbit of info... how did you know the bearings were bad? was there a sound? if so, could you describe what it sounded like to you? because there's like a weird slight... rubbing/grinding strange noise coming from my front passenger wheel which i can only hear when the clutch is engaged...
anyway, thanks if you can help

 

[ECTurboDSM]

It sounds like your clutch is just chattering. Its annoying, but nothing bad. When a wheel bearing goes bad, you can jack up the car and place your hands at the top and bottom of the wheel and move it back and forth. It almost as if the lug nuts weren't even there (even though they were fully torqued). The whole hub assembly will move in ways that it obviously shouldn't, so its pretty easy to diagnose.

 

[realhp=turbo]

First, the lower control arm sticking is common. Hit that fu#$er with a dead blow plastic hammer in the downward motion. It'll come loose. Second, that rubbing grinding noise that you hear when your clutch is engaged is a bad throw out bearing. You can also tell your wheel bearings are bad when you drive it will make this low howl, and a slight grinding. Aside from the top to bottom wheel movement.
mike

 

[Korndogg]

First, the lower control arm sticking is common. Hit that fu#$er with a dead blow plastic hammer in the downward motion. It'll come loose. Second, that rubbing grinding noise that you hear when your clutch is engaged is a bad throw out bearing. You can also tell your wheel bearings are bad when you drive it will make this low howl, and a slight grinding. Aside from the top to bottom wheel movement.
mike

i was gonna PM you cause i don't want to hijack this.. but i figured everyone should share the knowledge

you said bad throw out bearing... this noise i can hear is only when there is power transfer from the wheel back to the engine.. if i'm accellerating, decellerating (using the engine and downshifting or just letting off the gas). i can not hear it if i give it just enough gas to be going at a constant speed, or if i disengage the clutch..

if i take the wheel of and turn the rotor, is sounds almost like it's coming from the caliper or down near the center of the rotor. i really can't tell, but i can't find the noise..

still sound like a throw out bearing? because i don't know what or where that bearing is or how hard it is to replace
thanks


and um... free bump for ECTurboDSM



edit:
btw, i bought the car about 3k miles ago and was told that the clutch had 20 miles on it... if that makes a difference