93 civic front hub bearing

I have a 93 civic lx with 205k miles. I went to get my wheels aligned
today because there was some type of rumbling sound coming from the
front left wheel area. Being that i just replaced my steering boots,
I needed an alignment anyways. The guy brings me to my car on the
lift and wiggles the top of my tire in and out, he said that my hub
needed to be pressed. They quoted me 250 to do the job, but I've
replaced the head on my car...so I think I can hold my own as far as
working on it goes. I know a guy that has a press and is willing to
let me use it to do what I need to do. Is it worth the trouble of
getting a new bearing and separating and pressing this thing or should
I just go to the junkyard and find a good one? If I should do it
myself, does anyone have any other clear ways of doing this job. I
have the service manual and I understand the steps leading up the
removing the hub...it gets kind of cloudy there.

Thanks,
Ricky

 

at the end of the day, it's probably cheaper and quicker to get a whole
knuckle/hub assembly from a junkyard and replace the whole thing. you
can do the bearing with a press obviously, and it's not that hard, but
it's easily screwed up too [need to avoid loading the inner race when
pushing the outer race into position, etc] - the junkyard solution
avoids all that.

fyi, bearings on hondas can easily last 300k miles or more, so chances
are, this bearing has been hammered at some point in the past thus
brinelling the bearing. if you ever find yourself in the position where
a driveshaft needs to be extracted, use a press - don't hammer.

 

yea I was leaning more toward the junkyard option anyways...just to
save the hassle. thanks for the heads up.


Ricky

 

Good idea - the bearings are usually ungodly tight. A 12 ton press would
probably be the minimum. I've had to shop out the ones I've done. And I
suspect a hub from a wrecking yard would be about the same price as a
bearing. Car-part.com lists two near me; one for $45 (ungraded) and one for
$59 (grade A - low miles or otherwise exceptional condition).

Mike

 

Well, I went to the junkyard yesterday after class and found a nice
hub that was 90% off..all that to take off was left was the ball joint
at the top. The part was only $45 on a car that had 125k miles on
it. I came home, slapped it on in about 2 hours and got my tires
aligned at the shop. All in all I saved about $250 and a day without
my car...pretty good deal I think. I even gave my car a bath after
for accepting the transplant seamlessly. Thanks for all your help.

 

Score!

 

invest some of your saved $250 in a joint separator, as per tegger's
faq's. saves you a whole bunch of time messing about with that top link
in the future!