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How to change a wheel bearing

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It may be damn near impossible without buying a new half shaft depending on how rusted the axle hub assembly is. Get ready for a LOT of swearing, and I hope you have a nice puller, although the assembly itself can still mushroom.
 
It may be damn near impossible without buying a new half shaft depending on how rusted the axle hub assembly is. Get ready for a LOT of swearing, and I hope you have a nice puller, although the assembly itself can still mushroom.

LOLz! yeah its can be easy as pie or the biggest pain you ever came across good luck!
 
It may be damn near impossible without buying a new half shaft depending on how rusted the axle hub assembly is. Get ready for a LOT of swearing, and I hope you have a nice puller, although the assembly itself can still mushroom.

I have a nice puller, and I have a crap ton of swearing inside of me so I should be fine there. What do you mean by the assembly could be mushroom. Sorry I am a noob at this.
 
Put it this way. I needed to replace the exact same part on my 97 talon. Take off the tire and just look at how rusted the first big bolt is. This bolt will be one of the easier parts to get off.

I used an impact wrench, took 30 min of banging away with it to finally break it loose, not a good start.
The axle was rusted solid to the hub. I tried heating it, PB Blaster, gear puller, sledge hammer, heating it up and trowing water on it (trying to get it to crack). None of it worked. I ended up replacing the axle and hub along with the wheel bearing.

So my advice, be prepared to replace the half-axle and hub along with the bearing. Those parts add up. I have a friend that got me new parts at cost. Total came to $690. He got them while I was at college. So I don't know, he might have got genuine mitsu parts. You might be able to find the parts cheaper. I had some guy e-mail me back 4 days after I had the car back together. He was parting out his GSX and would have shipped me the parts for $40 plus shipping. That might be your best way to go.

Good luck.
 
I have a nice puller, and I have a crap ton of swearing inside of me so I should be fine there. What do you mean by the assembly could be mushroom. Sorry I am a noob at this.

I've heard of the assembly "mushrooming", e.g. losing structural integrity and literally bending under the force of the puller, forming a basidomycota-looking entity.

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This is what I had between the gear puller and my axle. I kept is as a token of how much of a pain my car can be. It's a 1/8" thick mild steel plate. I'll try a piece of carbide steel if I have to do it again.

I actually had it on so tight that I punched out an 1/8" hole in the middle of the plate. It ended up in the hole in the axle. I stood on the end of a 4' pole we had attached to turn the gear puller. I'm 185 lbs.

The end of my axle was mushroomed as much as the second picture before my buddy and I gave up.

Like I said, good luck.
 

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^^ If only my bearing change went that easily. We tried soaking it in pb blaster too. After we removed the axle, hub still attached, I took it down to my buddy's dad's shop. We put it in a 15 ton press and even that didn't get the axle out of the hub. Good ol' PA road salt!
 
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