R33 Rear Wheel Bearing Replacement

[No Crust Racing]

Hey all,

Thought I’d share my Saturday’s work with you all.

Task: Replace rear wheel bearing – get rid of that annoying hum.

Time Required: With correct tools, a few hours, without, 8 painful hours.

Skill Level: If all goes well, intermediate, if it doesn’t - advanced.

Specific Tools required:

• 36mm socket

• 17mm socket or spanner

• 3 pronged pulley style puller

• Breaker bar

• Bearing press (do not even attempt this without ready access to one)

• Jack and stands

• Leadlight

Notes:

• If you’re unsure if you have a bad bearing, pay Nissan for an hour of their time and have them diagnose it like I did.

• This guide can be applied to both rear bearings, in my case it was a passenger side for those who are curious.

• A cheap pair of thin gloves can minimise skin lose and make it easier to clean up later.

• Nissan claimed I’d need a new grease seal which is located on the drive shaft side of the wheel bearing. The seal is metal and is quite hearty, as such I chose not to replace mine. This decision can be made at your own discretion. Plus the seal is worth $70 so I’m taking it back!

To get started, crack the wheel nuts the jack the car up from the diff and get some stands under it (safety first people, you will need to get under the car and you should never do this without stands, they’re cheap as). Ok, you now see something like…

OK, now you’re going to need to remove the caliper so we can take the rotor off, you’ll need a 17mm socket to remove the two bolts at the back that hold it on. You may need to use a open ended or ring spanner to get at one of them as it’s a bit more confined, shown below.

You can now move the caliper out of the way, be sure not to excessively bend the hoses. This is also a good chance to check hose and pad condition.

Yep, plenty of meat on those babies...

Ok, now remove the split pin and the metal cover which hides the behemoth 36mm nut. We didn’t have one that big on hand but know a few people in the industry and were able to borrow one, precious time lost. Oh yeah, remove that big ass nut and then you can remove the rotor, this may require some love taps from a trusty hammer. You should now be looking at something like this.

At this point you can remove the washer shown in the above pic and take a second to work out where to go from here, I harassed the local Nissan dealer and got the diagram shown below which shows our offending wheel bearing buried away behind the stud assembly.

We gave the stud assembly some healthy taps to try and loosen it, with absolutely no success. Even PJ didn’t know what to do and this pooch has seen her share of mechanical work.

It became obvious that we were going to need a pulley remover to get this sucker out and given that we didn’t have one it was off to local auto shop to buy a product that would suit our needs.

$27.50 worth of pure quality…

OK, more time wasted but we’re getting there. Use the awesome power of the Ferrari puller like so.

Here’s when things started turning south.. The damn stud assembly simply would not budge and we realised that we’d pushed the drive shaft out rather than pulled the assembly forward. The following shows the back of the assembly.

Woops, we forgot to remove the wheel bearing hub bolts, you can see two of them in the above pic. After removing all 4 of these (woops can’t remember the socket size, but they are a bitch to get at) have another crack with the Ferrari puller and the whole assembly will come out in one piece. In my pic we’ve also removed the parking brake components to get a good look at what’s going on. Play very close attention to where the components go, especially the springs, as you've gotta put it all back together later.

At this point it becomes obvious that we’re dealing with a pressed fit bearing and will require a bearing press to separate the components. Luckily for me I know a mate who has one so we headed to his house to use it. I forgot the digital camera but can only describe the next three hours as a living nightmare.

We pressed the bearing out of the stud assembly and found that one of the bearing cups had separated from the bearing housing and had stayed attached to the stud assembly shaft, not good. At first we tried a hammer and a sharp chisel to try and move the cup forward enough to get some thick plates underneath the cup edge and press it off but we bent the plates and realised how tight the cup was on there.

We then tried heating it with an Oxy to have it slip off with no success. We then welded some bolts to the edges(with a MIG) of the cup to get the leverage we needed to use the press, we broke one of the welds off!

By this stage I was starting to stress, I mean it was getting on in the day, Mark Webber had lost his 2nd place position on the grid and we’d run out of options… Bar one.. We’ll grind the bastard! Well, we actually ground some deep marks in the cup wall and then heated it again with the Oxy and were able to use those deep gouges to get leverage with a chisel and hammer to belt the thing off. We did mark the stud assembly shaft in one spot and performed some clean and tidy work to make it all smooth and like new again. Here’s what was left of the cup.

Here's two showing the old wheel bearing assembly and the other side where the cup let go.

You’ll need that bearing press again to press the stub assembly into the new wheel bearing. We headed back home after stopping off to pickup my mate a 1L bottle of Southern for his troubles, You should always reward acts of heroism =D. Now it’s time to put it all back together. Installation is more or less the reverse of removal.

We’re not done yet but we’ve earned a drink and a hard earned thirst needs a big cold…

Tasty orange drink!

The hard part of putting it all back together is the hand brake assembly as the springs are a real pain to work with. We used some needle nose pliers and two sets of hands to put it all back together. We also put the adjuster in last as it’s next to impossible to get it all to stay still while you put springs in.

Half way there on the hand brake..

Don't forget this!

The rest is pretty straight forward and shouldn’t cause any hassles. Remember to adjust both sides when doing hand brake adjustments, adjustments are made by rotating the tabs which lengthens or shortens the adjuster. There’s a removable grommet in the rotor hub that allows you to get at it with a flat head screw driver.

Don’t forget to put this back on!

Now get the jack back in there and remove the stands, be sure to remove all tools before lowering the car!

Woops, almost crushed the leadlight!

Be sure to tighten all your wheel nuts with the wheel on the ground. Go for a test drive and see if the hum has gone, YES IT HAS! Take it easy for the first kilometer or so just to make sure all is right. Check your wheel nuts again when you return.

Congratulations you’re done! Hopefully your replacement didn’t take 8 hours because of this guide =D

Cheers

[benl1981]

Nice tutorial. I should put together one for the front bearing replacement.

Agree with you on paying to get a diagnosis if unsure. It was actually my tailshaft that was bent causing vibration NOT the wheel bearing. The wheel bearing wasn't perfect but didn't turn out being too bad.

It's a fair bit of work and wouldn't call it fun. Similar to you I had a friend with a press (didn't end up using it, used hammer and puller instead)..fair bit of work!

Edited April 9, 2006 by benl1981

[heslo]

Could this be what my problem is? I keep getting a high pitched whining sound that comes and goes which is coming from what seems to be my rear drivers side wheel. Would following this replacement guide fix my problem?

[No Crust Racing]

Hmm, high pitched whining doesn't describe the sound I had, mine was a low pitched hum. As stated in the guide, one of the first steps it get Nissan to diagnose it properly. Then, if it,s wrong, you can blame them =D

[JCMarshall_Law]

Excellent guide, prolly not something I'll be doing for fun though:)

Might be good to add:

- make sure the handbrake is off before you try to take the rear disk off.

- While you have the hub off, take the disk backing plates off (can be done with hubs on but not as easy). The have a big impact on brake cooling and only serve to collect rocks as far as I can see.

Edited April 10, 2006 by JCMarshall_Law

[R33S2]

Good tutorial and I have felt your pain, sucks dont it? Just a suggestion that if you included the part numbers it would be that much more easier to follow.

As a fitter I've had bearing journals stuck on shafts so many times its not funny, if its rusted on cut it off, an engineer told me that rust in that area can excert upto 8,000psi and you have no chance with a press.

Also some bearings are heated and the shaft frozen in liquid nitrogen to make a very tight fit (bearing is actually smaller than shaft) but I dont know if that is the case with these drive shafts.

The way I do it is to cut like photo at an angle but opposite side as well, you dont need to cut right through to shaft but close. Then mid way between each cut weld a bead from side to side, this shrinks the journal and sometimes cracks the cuts, then hit with a cold chisel in the cuts, they come off eventually and minimum harm done. if you have a bearing cap stuck in a hole (brake rotor HQ) a weld around the bearing surface will shrink it and falls out.

Another way is weld reaaaaly hot and melt away the the material but not right through! and then SMASH with hammer!! (worked when my grinder shat itself AND I dropped my cold chisel 7 stories up)

[No Crust Racing]

Parts required for this job (Nissan Part Numbers):

43210AA100 - Wheel bearing hub (this comes as a whole hub and not just a bearing. I sourced this part from a local supplier for much less than the 230ex GST Nissan wanted.

3925235F03 - Metal Grease Seal (Goes behind the hub assembly between it and the drive shaft - I did not end up requiring this.

R33S2: Having Never replaced a wheel bearing before, this was a baptism of fire and I was lucky I had access to skilled people and tools =D One mate scored himself a 1L bottle of Southern for his efforts which were most appreciated.

JCMarshall_Law: LoL< I'd hope would realise they need to disengage the hand brake but your point is taken =)

I was not aware that the backing plate was a heat issue, especially given the natural brake bias of most cars but I'll take it on board when/if I do any track work.

Cheers for the feedback guys,

[7yphon]

Is it much harder for the front as I need to do the two front bearings, I get all the way to the hub but there seems to be some sort of plate blocking us from getting to the nut any ideas on how to remove this?

[No Crust Racing]

A pic would be good, you may need a pully remover as shown in my guide to get the plate off the hub assembly first?

Pics would assist a lot =D

[7yphon]

Do you have a pull apart Diag of the front Disks and hub assembily, ill try and take some pics when I can

[No Crust Racing]

Nope sorry but your local Nissan dealer will have. Give them a try, don't call them, go in!

[JCMarshall_Law]

Yeah it should be fairly obvious that the handbrake needs to be off but it is one of those stupid things that people do - I know because I've done it - I sat there for 15 mins wordering what I was doing wrong when trying to remove the rear disk, before I realised... damm... the bloody handbrake!

The backing plates, it is more important for the fronts but I did my rears as well. I found it really did help. With standard rotors and backing plates in place I would have brake fade after 4 laps of the QLD raceway national circuit (famous for being hard on brakes - 4 long straights) after removing the backing plates I could get in around 5 or 6 laps before I had to let things cool down. In a R33 GTST.

Cheers,

JCMarshall_Law: LoL< I'd hope would realise they need to disengage the hand brake but your point is taken =)

I was not aware that the backing plate was a heat issue, especially given the natural brake bias of most cars but I'll take it on board when/if I do any track work.

Edited April 13, 2006 by JCMarshall_Law

[Anakha]

Sry to add another reply to this thread.. but I take it this is the same for a 32?

[No Crust Racing]

No idea sorry, you'd best ask a 32 owner who's done it or call your local Nissan =)

[sloazr33]

nice work Dan!

so you got nissan to diagnose the bearing problem,

was it whining and get louder as your speed increased?

I have a whining in teh rearend somewhere, not sure if its the diff or wheelbearings??

diff doesn't make any other noises so I think its teh wheelbearings (guess I'm off to nissan)

[No Crust Racing]

Those sounds do describe how mine was, be sure to try and locate thesound though. We put mine up on stands and drove it to help locate the sound to be sure. Even still, I went to Nissan to get it confirmed. Mind you they misdiagnosed another problem for me recently so they are not all knowing.

Good luck.

[ellie]

Top effort to make a tutorial!

If I could add that where you went wrong was - you should remove the driveshaft completely which is only 4 bolts on the diff and bash your drive shaft out with a drift. Then with your hub/bearing assembly still bolted in use a slide hammer to pull the hub from the bearing. Then with your driveshaft removed it's easy to get at the 4 bolts of the bearing and replace it. But obviously you need a slide hammer and a long treaded rod with bearings to press the hub back in. So awsome effort with what you had!

[No Crust Racing]

Given the force required from the bearing press to get the parts seperated, I'd strongly doubt that you could do it with a slide hammer. You'd have to be a tank =D If you have got that kind of power with a slide hammer then awesome but I think a bearing press is a better, easier option There's also 5 bolts on my drive shafts, just for reference. Hope this is all helping someone =D

Cheers

[No Crust Racing]

Now now, play nice. Perhaps I had a very stuffed wheel bearing (we already know it was busted hence replacing it) but there was no way it was coming out with a slide hammer. If they come out easily for you, that's awesome and will save some time on the press. Everyone be advised that a slide hammer is apparently another option, at least you're all informed =D

[ellie]

Given the force required from the bearing press to get the parts seperated, I'd strongly doubt that you could do it with a slide hammer. You'd have to be a tank =D If you have got that kind of power with a slide hammer then awesome but I think a bearing press is a better, easier option There's also 5 bolts on my drive shafts, just for reference. Hope this is all helping someone =D

Cheers

Funny that! When every workshop this side of the black stump uses a slide hammer for removing the hub from the bearing! But you're right, what would I know?

I've only been a mechanic for god knows how long!