1st Gen Wheel bearing replacement issues

I just received a new bearing from Toyota this week and I’m on my home, should be there for this weekend. I’ll take everything apart again, only this time I’m taking the cv axle off and inspecting it closely. I’ll make sure to post my findings.

 

Not sure if this is helpful or not, but when I installed the hubs back into my wheel bearings, I put an old brake rotor on the press, set the studs from the hub through the holes in the rotor, then set the bearing (that I had already pressed into the knuckle) on the hub and pressed it in. I had a spacer on the back of the inner race for the bearing that the ram of the press pressed against. Doing it that way allowed me to easily see everything I was doing, making sure everything was lined up, and making sure everything was supported through the whole process.

 

Thanks for the advice. First bearing I blew I thought it was an error I made during the pressing process, so I took the precautions you mentioned in order to make sure the bearing was supported while pressing the hub in. Everything was fine, and the hub spinned perfectly, I was able to verify the bearing was seated properly as well. The problem came when i installed everything back, I’ve called several shops around my area and they all point me towards the cv axle. Either is not the correct length or it was over torqued. The hub spinned smoothly after I pressed it but when I assembled everything the wheel was hard to turn, in my inexperience, I thought it would loosen it up when I start driving her and ended up blowing up the bearing. It wasn’t suppose to be that tight, it should have a spinned freely after I torqued her to 173lbs. Fun times!!

 

I would make sure both your CV axles are identical, and redo it. The longer axle was on the passenger side, correct? I wonder how a different CV axle got there, or if it's some sort of extended travel CV axle. What's your suspension situation? Everything stock? If so, I'd make sure I had 2 CV axles that were the exact same part number.

 

Do not do this. My rotor exploded into a million pieces my bearing was so seized on. Most catastrophic failure on my press yet lol Edit: Nevermind, you’re talking install not removal

Also, I’m almost positive you cannot over tighten the spindle nut, there is a groove right where the tone ring is that will not allow it to go further.

I torque spindle nuts to about 10 ugga dugga’s on my high torque 20v DeWalt, and I’ve done more Toyota bearing than I’m happy to admit.

 

I blew up an old brake rotor when I did mine too. It survived the first bearing, then exploded on the second. Ended up using angle iron and 4x4 posts. That combo worked amazingly well.

 

Indeed, the two axles I got a remans from Toyota. The longer axle I took off seems to be aftermarket. The suspension is stocked. You raise all good questions, I intend to look everything over more closely this time around.

 

In your opinion what could be could be the problem. If the wheel hub spins freely after being pressed on but then doesn’t want to spin after the cv axle nut is torqued?

 

You have to be compressing the bearing races together and not allowing them to rotate freely. Mine rotated easily after torquing the hub nut. The tone ring and spacer are both reinstalled?

 

I’m pretty sure you can’t over torque it. Knowing Toyota they would build that into the design assuming shops would not torque check the nut. The ridge is built into the spindle. So if your spindles are aftermarket they might not have the same tolerances.

I tightened the $hit out of mine and they spun freely. I’ve done countless Toyota projects where I have had to pull the spindle nuts, and that’s one of the nuts I never seem to torque check

 

Did you use the old bearing to press in the new bearing to the knuckle (outside of bearing).

When you press the spindle on you press by the center of the bearing. I know you said you followed the right procedure, but just checking again.

I messed this up on my RZR unit bearing, but didn’t have a spare so I crammed it back together and it seems to still be working after a few hundred offroad miles.

F’d RZR bearing;

 

That’s the way Sue did it, that’s the way I did it.

 

Yes, the press work I did was fine, the problem happened when I torqued everything back on the truck. I did the passenger side, no issues works fine, the driver side is giving me problems.

 

Yes, at this point I wouldn’t discard the possibility that maybe I over torqued the axle but I just don’t know how I could have screwed that up twice. I’m an over the road truck driver and haven’t been home in 3 weeks, my long tube headers from Dirty Deeds get home tomorrow. I need to get these front bearings done, got a lot of work left to do.

 

I don’t think you’re applying too much torque per se, but that the axle that you say isn't like the others is the wrong one and is allowing the hub nut to compress the bearing.

 

The axle I took off from the passenger side was longer than the drivers side. I bought two remanufactured axles from Toyota both have the same part number., and seemed identical. I’m only going by what I’ve been told, both shops I called seem to think there is something with the axles or the torque. I’m hoping I can find the problem this time around, this is the third bearing I buy and they are not cheap.

 

I’m going through this in my head.

•If you didn’t press the bearing fully into the knuckle, then you wouldn’t be able to install the snap ring.

•If you didn’t fully press the spindle into the bearing, then the Axle nut “might” pull the whole assembly together. If it doesn’t then it might not have been fully seated.

 

Both of these bottom out during pressing and should be easy to confirm proper seating. When pressing the hub back in, the inside portion of the bearing must be supported so that you are pressing the hub in against it. If this isn’t done properly, then the bearing may get separated. This should be obvious when pressing as well. The tone ring and spacer then drop in. The CV then contacts the spacer on the inside and the bearing surface on the outside. It should be compressing the inner bearing races only together. They should still be free to rotate within the outer races on the cylindrical bearings inside.

 

But if the spindle didn’t fully seat, and the axle nut reached torque spec before it “pulled” it all together, then the bearing might not have been fully compressed.

Even an aftermarket CV I don’t think has the ability for the axle nut to “bottom out” there is a lot of extra room there it seems.

But the fact that OP also did CV’s at the same time

 

Well good news the culprit is the reman axle from Toyota, the bad news is I think is been over a year since I bought it, so there is no warranty. I sat on this axle for over a year, I just put it on.

Ok so let me go over everything one more time so we are all on the same page and hopefully this post can be of help to someone in the future.

I’m doing a restoration/modification to my Tundra, so I decided to get new steering knuckles and have Chaos gussets welded on them, new brake calipers, rotors, seals, bearing brake hoses, brake lines and reman cv axles. Everything but the Rotors and brakes shoes where from Toyota. I did the front but for some odd reason I blew out the passenger side bearing while test driving it. I thought I made a mistake during the press work but found it odd since I did the drivers side without issues. I got a second bearing, redid all the press work and again during the test drive blew it out. I called around a couple shops and posted my problem here from all I was able to gather I knew this time around I needed to take out that Toyota reman axle and inspect it closely. The two shops I called insisted on the cv axle being the problem.I took everything apart and removed the cv axle, I found that the inner joint had way too much in and out play. I checked it against the old one, and the old one felt tight with maybe an inch of pull on the inner joint but the reman had probably over 3 inches of pull. I pressed in the new bearing and put the old cv axle back on and no problems whatsoever. The boot on the axle is all deformed from the amount of pull/slop the axle has, lesson learned, cost me a bit of money but I knew what i signed up for, is all part of the journey.

Lesson learned, a bad cv axle can blow out a bearing pretty fast depending on the amount of play it has.

Update: Called my local Toyota dealer, the axle is still under warranty, they were able to pull it up. They ordered another reman axle and will call me when it arrives. The old axle is in great shape but it will be needing new boots soon.

 

Glad you got it sorted out.

 

Little bit of a thread revival but i’m dealing with this same issue now.
Got new koyo wheel bearings and new hubs

pressed it all in today. One of the hubs spin easily after all pressed in. The other is harder because I forgot the wheel seal the first time and had to press the hub back out and then on again. It took part of the wheel bearing with it so i hoped for the best when i pressed it in. Once i got the axle nut tight, the wheels spin but not super easily. I replaced these axles 2 weeks ago with aftermarket ones.
The bearings aren’t too hot after a 5-7 minute drive. I can touch the inside metal part of the axle without much discomfort at all.

 

Also, I noticed that these wheel bearings did not have a tone ring when they came out and I didn’t have any new ones. My truck is 2000 AC 4wd 4.7L.

 

The first time I did my press work, after pressing in the bearing, I didn’t support the bearing underneath while pressing in the hub, and I over pressed the hub slightly. I caught my mistake and was able to fix the problem without damaging the bearing. The reason I knew something was wrong was because the hub had a bit of resistance when trying to spin it while the second side I did spinned freely.

 

both sides when i pressed the hub in i rotated the knuckle back and forth, spinning the wheel bearing. Also i pressed the knuckle on to the hub pressing only from the inside of the bearing.

 

ABS was optional on the 2000-2002 trucks. So if you don't have ABS then there won't be any tone rings.

 

Good info in here. I went through CV axle hell after lifting my MB GLK350 a few years back. Tried aftermarket, wouldn't pay $800 for reman OEMs, so I rebuilt them myself. Even with the Tundra...I have an aversion to anything aftermarket when it comes to CV axles. I was looking for new OEMs last week but they are on permanent backorder everywhere. I ended up ordering a set of reman OEMs.

Seems CVs wear fast even with just a 1.75" lift on these...

 

And if you don't know what to look for, if you have ABS, your truck will have this cube under the hood with hard brake lines coming out the top, passenger side, the "ABS squid".

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so i took the axle off today and compared it with the old one and the new one (non oem) is definitely longer than the old one. I’ll be putting the old one back in and seeing that it spins correctly now, i just had 2 questions.
1) are both cv axles the same length? I’ve found differing answers for this on the forum
2) would driving with the longer axle (tight to spin wheel) would this damage my wheel bearing? I only drove about 3 miles at most.

 

1) Both axles, same part, same part number.
2) No.