W124 rear wheel bearing replacement
 

It's an 87 300td just for reference.

Anyway, the dreaded has happened. While attempting to remove the driveshaft, I stripped 2 of the (ZXN) bolts at differential end despite my best efforts. Vice grips aren't cutting it(duh). Looking for brilliant ideas on getting them out.

Hoping to avoid grind the heads off and removing the wheel carrier from all the control arms/links. Like I said, looking for brilliant ideas.

Grab it with some kind of extractor tool?
I’ve used these ones called “bolt grip” made by Irwin before

Remove the hub. Then grind the heads off the bolts and remove the axle. There will be an inch or so of the headless bolts remaining. Hit them with a propane torch, then use a stud extractor to pull them. You can even do it with a pipe wrench.

While the hub is out, you can bring it somewhere to have the old bearing pressed out, it will save a lot of work.

ppg
 

its a good idea to wear face shield & leather gloves whilst grinding.

sometimes you get a warning before a disc lets go

sometimes not

good luck, we're rooting for you!

Weld a nut on the stripped bolt

Unless you are planning on using the SIR Tools BM-90 tool or something similar how are you planning on R&R the bearing itself?

I don't know if you can get the axle out of position with the wheel carrier/hub still in place if you only grind the bolt heads off. That's because you'd still have the bolt stub left in place and you might not have enough slack in the axle joints to gain the clearance enough to get the diff end off/over those remaining stubs.

If you've got a bearing tool and you don't want to completely disconnect the wheel carrier/hub from the suspension links, you might only be able to do that with the bolt shafts completely removed. Then an external extractor or a welded nut method would probably work the best. I've found working on the diff end axle bolts easiest using a long extension and working them from out near the wheel carrier using an impact tool. Heating the bolt heads will soften the blue threadlock on those bolts and make them much easier to break free.

If you plan on a shop pressing the old bearing out and the new bearing in then the wheel carrier hub will need to be fully removed and then you can fool with the diff end bolts once the wheel carrier is out of the way.

Try notching the stripped bolt heads with a chisel and hammer it. I would be cautious of using a propane torch so close to the fuel line components.

Thanks for your thoughts guys. Didn't work on it today, maybe tomorrow, but probably saturday. Am a little leery of applying heat right next to the cv joint and boot. Rubber and grease do burn. Not that grinding is going to be easy and heat free. I may try a little heat at the diff. end, since that's where the threads are that are holding, not to mention the threadlocker... Will of course have a fire extinguisher handy.

necro-ing a bit of an old thread here. Haven't worked on the vehicle due to rain(if you live in central california you know what I'm talking about) and a shoulder issue until now.

got the drive shaft out(by removing the outer wheel assy, along with the troublesome bolts, which came out nice and easy once the drive shaft was out.

Now for a new issue: It seems the wheel carrier, which I forgot to remove before I took out the driveshaft due to pre-occupation with the stripped bolt heads, doesn't want to be tapped out of the bearing. Anybody got any ideas other than loosely assembling it all again and using a gear puller to get it out? I'm guessing this bearing is original from the looks of it, so it's had a good long time to rust/contact weld.

The kroil has had no effect that I can tell so far....

Picture would help

It seems like the hub, the center piece that the rotor slides on to is stuck? Yes? If so, get a large slide hammer, attach it with wheel studs and impact the hub out.

The hub itself is NOT going to be "tapped out" it is pressed into place with an interference fit. Sometimes even the tool designed for R&R will struggle
with separating things. The bearing is destroyed when pulling the hub out of it, then usually a race from the bearing is cut off the hub. The remains of the bearing are removed after removing the large C-clip from its groove.

Assuming you have the wheel carrier off the car you'll need to get to a real press at a machine shop or someplace with such a piece of equipment.

Sometimes the new bearing can be installed by a pearson that understands what they are doing. But someone that doesn't understand exactly what they are working with and trying to accomplish can just as easily destroy the new bearing by failing to push only on the parts of the bearing and hub that prevent damage.

If you go the slide hammer route you'll need the biggest slide hammer you can get 10 pounds! And even with that you'll be pounding it quite a bit you'll need to secure the work in a vice or something in order to pull against it.

To get an idea the way some people get this job done you can search YouTube for SIR Tools BM-90, there's a video of someone getting a 201 car rear bearing done.

Eat two boxes of wheaties and install a hub puller to that hub, get yourself a very chunky slide hammer and attach it to the hub puller.

You will need to slide that hammer quite a bit to pull the hub out - Its doable on a sedan as the inner race halves are not trapped unlike the wagon rear bearings which are tapered type and require literal hulk/brute force with slide hammers that require 10 or 15 lb sledges. On wagons, its best to remove the entire bearing carrier and get it to a HD truck shop or a shop that has a 50 ton press and proper cylinder spacers so they only react on the circular snout of the carrier and not the brake caliper ears.