Just noticed today my tire was sitting crooked, so I jacked the truck up to see what was wrong. Retightened everything,next grabbed the tire top and bottom and lifted it back and forth noticed there was quite a bit of play. Do that mean I need to change the bearings. Never had to deal with this yet. Wanna fit it before I go to hammer next week. Thx for any help

ROB:D

YEs, if yu jacked it up and did that and the tire had play, that is one way to tell. The other way is if there is gear oil in your drum. Well, actually this only indicates taht you have a bad seal but they usually go bad about the same time.

By the way, I found the cheapest bearings at Autozone. Called every parts supplier I could find. They ranged from 110 I believe to 24 or whatever I paid at Autozone. Cant remember the exact price but they were cheapest by a good 10 bucks.

Well I would like to know this. I just replaced a rear seal on Monday. First problem with the welded rear. Been in there since last August. I had gear oil coming out of the stud holes, and all over the brakes. The bearing seemed fine. I didn't check the tire after it was all put back together though. May have to do that this weekend. That is the only way I know to check. TyTy Are you saying that you got rear bearings for $24 at autozone. Big difference in $24 to $110 :eek: Mike

I just bought rear bearings, and the cheapest place I could find them was at Advance Auto Parts, for forty something apiece. I tried Autozone first, and they didn't have them in stock, and coudln't or wouldn't even order them, so I guess it varies from place to place. Cheapest place I have found to get them if you are not in a hurry is http://www.jtoutfitters.com !

Frankentaco (http://128.83.80.200/taco/rwb.html) has a good writeup on how to change them.

I replaced mine with factory Toyota bearings and they were $35/each I think but that was a year or so ago. I also replaced the seals as they are probably ready for replacement as well.

Autozone sells Timken Bearings and Seals, very HQ from whom all I talk to...

You can take the whole deal to a local machine shop and have them do it for around $18-$30 a tire, or do it yourself though its a little harder.

I did the slam on the ground method and then used pipe to press it back on, my hands were sore for a few days from slamming it on the ground...

Take it to a machine shop, much easier.

Originally posted by Snake47720
You can take the whole deal to a local machine shop and have them do it for around $18-$30 a tire, or do it yourself though its a little harder. I want your machine shop! I replaced my lockrighted 4-cyl 3rd with the stock 4.10s this past weekend - with a V6 unit w/ Detroit & 5.29s. While I was in there I replaced the inner & outer seals, bearings, and bearing retainers. There was only a slight drip of gear oil. But when I pulled the drums off, EVERYTHING was covered in a *nasty* mix of dust and crud - and 90wt. The adjusters were packed and had apparently long since stopped working properly.

BTW - make sure you get new bearing retainers.. they're the *tight* press-fit components that really hold everything in place.

If you don't have access to a shop press, stop right now. There's no reason to continue thinking of doing it yourself.


Disassembly is pretty simple: Remove wheel & brake drum.
Disconnect parking brake cable from backing plate
Disconnect brake line - be sure to have something to plug this with, or your master cylinder will be sucked dry eventually.
Pull brake assembly & axleshaft from housing.


Now comes the fun part. Unless you have the correct SST, you're not going to be able to use a press to just push the old bearing and retaining collar off. You need some way to hold the backing plate in place while you push the axleshaft out of it with the press. The The SST gives you that ability.

If you don't have a way to accomplish this (probably won't) you get to try one of two things - Either pounding everything off by brabbing the backing plate in your hand (leave all the brake stuff on for extra mass) and banging the end of the shaft on the concrete, or using some means to cut off the retaining collar. Gave up on this after my hands went numb from 20 minutes of pounding.

I used a torch to *slowly* cut through most of the collar, then split it with a sledge hammer & cold chisel. Heated the bearing a bit with the torch to expand it, and it pounded right off.

To reassemble, you will need a shop press, and a piece of tubing or something big enough to fit around the axle shaft all the way up to the spot where the snap-ring clips in. Reassembly is the easy part.

I could grab the backing plate and wiggle it back and forth about 3/4" with the old bearing, so the tires would move about an inch or two at their outside edges. Now they harly shift at all. :cool:

Here's a good pic KLF posted on pressing everything together. He used a collar for mating either 2" or 1.5" pipe together... wasn't sure which. You can find them at Home Depot. Just bing your new bearing retaining collar up there with you, and get whichever size will make a nice firm base for it, but has a little larger inside diameter than the collar does.

BTW, I couldn't find the bearing retainer at autozone, but Napa had them. They were $10-15 each, IIRC.

If you get the Timken bearings from Autozone then they will come with the bearing retainers.

What really Pi$$ed me off was on my 80 axle i took and had each bearing and seal removed and installed for $18 per shaft.

When i got my 87 rear IFS axle, I pulled the backing plate and such myself (in prep for my rear discs) and then took the parts and such after being cleaned, to the machine shop, charged me the same $18 per axle just to put them on, i was mad because i did all that pounding on the ground just to havem charge me the same!

EDIT: Just reread Dr.Evil's post, my 87 bearings came w/retainers how about that...just open the box when you get them and see...

I have no oil leaks at all. Its just when I push the tire up and down in moves slightly, enough for the tire to sit crooked. Well maybe I'll pull it apart today.