Wheel Bearings
 

How do you know if you need to replace wheel bearings?

The recent change in colder weather here has brought out some odd sounds from what I belive is the rear pasenger side wheel. It had allways had a higher pitched but faint whine and recently has developed a lower pitched alternating sound that I only notice when coasting a lower speeds.

If it is the wheel bearings can I actually do this DIY or will I need some insanely exotic/expensive pullers?

In my neck of the woods the local garage will check the wheel bearings by jacking up the car trying to wobble the wheel.

Hands on 6 and 12 o'clock.

Any play and it's time to pay attention.

Not sure about your car, but if it is anything like the 126 chassis you will need the exotic pullers to extract the bearing from the housing and from the hub as well. Its an easy DIY only if you have the tools.

Check out this link. It is the proceedure for a 420sel.


Bearing Replacement & Adjustment Proceedure

Dear Gas,

If you are residing in the south land, do you have access to Kragens, or Pep Boys, where you can rent a really nice puller for cheap! Then it's a dawdle...

Yup.. got both of them in LA.. I guess they have a generic "wheel bearing puller"?

You have to be pretty precise about the quantity of bearing grease used (measured in grams). Too much or too little results in a hot bearing.

So maybe I could save the bearings that are in there by repacking the grease?

If they're noisy, they're damaged. Replace.

Okay and I guess new ones have to be packed..I haven't really had a chance to read the manual on this or see if there is any play in the wheels. I'll go nuts if I do this and the noise persists!

I just looked at this on the CD. You need at least six special tools to do this job. I will mail it to you if you want.

You should run the car with the rear wheels off the ground and listen around the wheels, axle shafts, and differential before you tear into the bearings. The noise you desribed sounds like axle shaft or differential to me.

I've got the CD's here .. I was mainly looking for an opinion on how easy woul dit be to do..but If I need that many tools then I'd probably be better off taking somewhere.

So do I put the car in drive with the rear wheels off the ground or is park okay??

You should put it in gear and try to simulate the conditions under which you get the noise. Kind of scary. Definitely recommend you do this on a lift.

Yikes!.. Guess I'll be taking it to a shop then

I don't know if it's any different from the front, but on my 126 i used a screw driver.

Welcome to the Forum Tom. That post is from 2002. He must have figured out how to fix it by now!

How did you come across that thread?