Doing this tomorrow on the G. Never had this problem before over the years. What kind of time am I looking at? How difficult? Hoping to get mentally prepared today before I break out the tools tomorrow. Thank you.

You will have to remove the knuckle to do it, unless you have removed your ABS sensor rings already.

Don't you need to pull the bearing apart? I can't remember as I havent had abs rings in years.

If the car still has ABS and the rings associated with it, then the whole assembly has to come apart to get the studs out and new ones in. That means bearings/seals pressed out and new ones pressed back in.

I rigged up a simple bracket for this. I just welded a piece of thick plate steel to a threaded nipple that screws onto my huge HF slide hammer. Bolt it up with two lug nuts and the hub will yank right off. You can use the axle nut to pull it back into place after you replace the stud. This way you don't have to bother pulling the knuckle and all that. Might be something to look into if you have a slide hammer and the means to fabricate a bracket.

I've found that pulling bearings apart are a 50/50 chance of being ok. If they are old, I recommend replacing anyway so they are fresh. My car was a pain to push by hand, then did all new bearings and it was noticeably easier to push. No play in the bearings, just old.

I agree completely. If they're original tear it all down and replace whatever parts are worn. However if all that has been done and you just happened to break/strip a stud the slide hammer method is way easier.

Wow, thanks for the advice. That slide hammer is sweet!

I didn't know that I have to pull bearings. I'm just gonna order new ones before I tear into it. Was hoping to drive the car this weekend. Have you guys used Autozone bearings? Should I just get them from JNZ and wait? Thanks!

OEM or nothing. I've used other off brands and had them fail within 6 months. There is a company that reboxs the OEMs, but the name escapes me right now. There is a seal on the inside also, and get new cir clips for the bearing. Those are dealer only.

Ug, well thank you for the info. Not exactly what I was hoping to hear lol. So if I want to do both fronts, I can order two of these and be set?

click

Yep, one for each side. It's not cheap to do it right, but it's the best. You can always call and ask for a discount on two.

You can take a gamble with ebay or rockauto and hope that you get bearings that were made in Japan, they'll more than likely be the same as stock or at least have the same quality. If they're made in China I'd pass on them, they're crap and probably won't even fit right.

Since you plan to replace the bearings search Youtube for Jafromobiles videos. He goes through the process of doing 1g awd front bearings for his colt but the process will be identical for you. It's really helpful.

Thanks for the props on the slide hammer adapter!

As mentioned, with the ABS rings still in place, the hub needs to be pressed apart. You could use a slide hammer to get it apart as Chris mentioned, but I wouldn't recommend beating the bearings back into the hub. The right way to do it would be with a press.

If you don't give a sh*t about retaining the ABS, you can actually cut the rings off and leave the hub in place. With the ABS rings removed, the studs will slip right out. Check out this thread if that's something you're interested in: click

Lastly, f*** no I wouldn't go to the stealership and order new wheel bearings. Why the hell would you? Buy the Timken units from Rockauto for half the price. Timken is a high quality bearing, and you'll have zero issues. If I recall correctly, the OEM unit is Timken anyways.

Oh, and if you need some wheel studs, let me know. I have a whole set in my garage I'm not doing sh*t with. Just pay shipping, and you can have whatever you need.

Quoting GSTwithPSI:
Just order it from Rockauto. I did mine a while back, and I'm at about 1,000 miles without issue.

BECK/ARNLEY Wheel Seal part # 0523303 (052-3303) $ 3.22
SKF Wheel Seal Wholesaler Closeout -- 30 Day Warranty part # 21281 $ 0.86
TIMKEN Wheel Bearing part # 513036 $ 31.79

The bitch part is pressing all the old stuff out, and getting the new stuff back in. You need a press and lots of patience.

From my build thread:
You have to disassemble the entire hub just to get the lug stud out. I figured this was as good a time as any to replace the wheel bearing. Here's the hub with everything removed; bearing, seals, everything pressed out.





Here's all the new stuff. It's pretty simple, just a bearing, snap ring, and 2 seals.



Aaaaaaand...everything all assembled.

OE are koyo not Timken. But Timken is probably the only alternative to OE I would trust.

You can also get *** brand (lol), they are on rockauto and are an OEM company to many german auto manufacturers.

They probably have looser tolerances. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Bah dum dis.

Don't use Timken. I've had several comebacks over the years, it's a 50/50 shot at having a good bearing. They will wear faster than OE. They are decent in low power low abuse cases, but on a GVR4, no.

I don't get why people use cheap replacement parts on their car, but will spend 500+ on an intercooler and over 1k on a turbo..... Food for thought.

Timken bearings aren't cheap parts, or inferior to the OE bearing for any reason I can see. How many ways are there to make a race and ball bearings? Kinda hard to f*** that up if making bearings is what you do. Unless you can prove one bearing is made of a superior material over the other, there will be no difference in longevity. And, I doubt you can prove_it. The Timken bearings I installed in both front hubs are working just fine, and I have about 3,000 miles on them at this point. I highly doubt I'll ever have to replace them again.

If you had several comebacks on a wheel bearing job, I'd examine your installation procedure, not the bearing.

I don't know why people automatically assume because you pay twice as much and buy it at a dealership, it's a superior part. That's not always the case.

OP, do what you want. From my experience, the Timken unit is just as good as OE. I wouldn't bother balling out on a set of wheel bearings, but that's just my DSM mentality speaking I guess /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rofl.gif

^^ GST I'll put in a few cents worth here.

Many of the Subaru models eat up non-OEM bearing assemblies including Timken. MY05-09 Legacy models have a hub/bearing cartridge which includes an integrated ABS ring, trying anything other than OEM was a crapshoot ( disables cruise and ABS ). Fronts were particularly sensitive, rears not so much but there were early failures on non-OEM stuff.

Never got a good reason for the issue, all I know is that when I swapped in OEM stuff, about 30% more than the Timken items, all my issues went away.

Now back to that 30% thing, what's your personal time worth? Saving a few $$$ now but doing the work 2x or more will end up costing more long-term. But in this Ebay and Chinese knock-off world no one pays attention anymore.
Quoting prove_it:
Bah dum dis.

Don't use Timken. I've had several comebacks over the years, it's a 50/50 shot at having a good bearing. They will wear faster than OE. They are decent in low power low abuse cases, but on a GVR4, no.

I don't get why people use cheap replacement parts on their car, but will spend 500+ on an intercooler and over 1k on a turbo..... Food for thought.

Guess who has new studs and no ABS...