1999 dodge wheel bearings

[wmgeorge]

Booster I am talking about the RT 2008 Chevy 3500 chassis, I just I was assuming that GMC and Chevrolet were one in the same, thanks for the correction!

 

[booster]

Hey booster, let's tell folks that you can and should lube the front sealed wheel bearings on Chevies. I need to do mine again soon.

Greasing Chevy sealed wheel bearings

Discussions of wheel bearing failures in Chevies (in particular) have been pretty common on several of the class B forums. One topic that comes up regularly is if it is possible to grease the "sealed" Chevy front wheel bearings. I did a bunch of reading last year during one of the discussions...

www.classbforum.com

Absolutely, I had left it off at this point as it an "off label" type of preventative medicine, and shops may be hesitant to do it. DIY, that isn't an issue.

I need to do ours also this year, but I also need to change the coolant, brake fluid, and transmission fluid so yep, I have been slacking

 

[wmgeorge]

Did you not just have shoulder replacement surgery Booster?

 

[booster]

Did you not just have shoulder replacement surgery Booster?

Yep, 7 weeks to go to hopefully all clear. I blame the slacking on that but part of it was the how uncomfortable the arms had gotten to all that stuff, and of course some laziness.

 

[RT-NY]

Well, I guess I've been doing it wrong then. I've typically just ignored the bearings until they start to make noise, then I replace them!

Yes even more than wrong, dangerous. I can't believe this post.

"I cant believe this post" is not helpful. And it is arrogant and insulting!

Why is it dangerous?

wmgeorge - I did not say that it is not dangerous -- I clearly said "I was doing it wrong"! What is arrogant and insulting and not helpful is you saying "I can't believe this post" as if I was advocating for something, which I obviously was not. In the future, please leave off the insults and just offer helpful explanations, and everyone will benefit.

 

[wmgeorge]

Yep, 7 weeks to go to hopefully all clear. I blame the slacking on that but part of it was the how uncomfortable the arms had gotten to all that stuff, and of course some laziness.

I hope it turns good, your like me you like to keep busy. I had life changing surgery in 2011 ordered to do nothing for 3 months, so thats when I restored a Cushman

 

[RT-NY]

As it turns out, it was the passenger side bearings that were bad. I am surprised because I had a garage do them 15,000 miles ago. It was clearly too tight, so maybe that was the cause. That wheel always seemed to run hotter when braking on steep hills, though I don't know if that is related. I replaced them with the Timken bearings/races, so we'll see how that works out. In any case, the rotor-hub assembly looks like it needs to be replaced soon so I expect I'll have to do it again before too long. Any recommendations on the rotor-hub assembly?

I used the old races to drive the new ones in, which was my original question, but I did not have a grinder to reduce the diameter so I just cut a small slice out of them (perpendicular to the race) so they would come back out again, and that worked fine.

 

[RT-NY]

I also had a question about compressing the caliper pistons a bit while the caliper is still attached to the vehicle to make removal easier -- it is easy to compress with a c-clamp when the caliper is out, but I have found it difficult to do with the caliper still attached. I have seen videos where people lever the caliper outward a bit with a screwdriver stuck into the cooling fins area of the rotor, but I can't do that in my vehicle. I have seen other videos where people stick a screwdriver between the metal backing plate of the brake pad and the piston itself and lever a bit that way, but I would think that might cause damage. Any suggestions?

 

[booster]

I also had a question about compressing the caliper pistons a bit while the caliper is still attached to the vehicle to make removal easier -- it is easy to compress with a c-clamp when the caliper is out, but I have found it difficult to do with the caliper still attached. I have seen videos where people lever the caliper outward a bit with a screwdriver stuck into the cooling fins area of the rotor, but I can't do that in my vehicle. I have seen other videos where people stick a screwdriver between the metal backing plate of the brake pad and the piston itself and lever a bit that way, but I would think that might cause damage. Any suggestions?

A bit of prying to move back the piston I think is normal and sometime you need to do it if there is a wear ridge on rotor holding the shoes from being removed. usually will try to push back the piston by pushing on the rotor, which pushes the pad on that side that moves the piston. Once the shoes are out, it is best to remove the rotor and use a clamp or I use a vise-grip welding clamp pliers that has expanded jaws goes place a C clamp can't. Backing plates are not strong enough to do any of this stuff ad they are thin sheet metal.

 

[Pilgrim-ClassB]

Does "never have a bearing fail" mean that you take them out and re-pack them as part of regular maintenance? After how many miles do you repack?

I've driven many cars with front bearings since I started using synthetics in 1977, and I worked in a service station in the 70s when doing bearing packs was a pretty common service. I still have a 1983 Datsun 280ZX Turbo, and I packed its bearings recently - with Amsoil synthetic grease. It's a messy job but not technically difficult. We have so many AWD and 4WD vehicles today - all of which generally have sealed bearings in front - that we tend to forget about front wheel bearings on RWD cars.

My practice has been to pack the bearings about every 20K miles, but it's a pretty flexible metric. As I wrote earlier, I've never had a front wheel bearing go bad on a vehicle I owned. It helps to check the service procedure, as the retaining nut normally should be torqued to a specific value, then backed off some portion of a rotation.