Rear Wheel Bearing - removal and installation

Post by **songzunhuang** » 14 Mar 2020, 19:08

My normally smooth and quiet car developed a droning noise. I suspected a wheel bearing and had it verified by an independent mechanic. However, his quote of $650 to replace one bearing made me pursue this myself. I offer it up to help others save a bundle.

New Part
After much searching, I decided to try a brand called Optimal. It was $116 with all bolts and has a 3 year warranty.
The OEM Volvo (or SKF) bearings were about $160-250 and the bolts were extra at $4 each!

: Optimal Wheel Bearing; Optimal.png (737.69 KiB) Viewed 1925 times

Bar Trick
The trickiest part of this would be getting the center 14mm bolt off that secured the hub to the halfshaft. How do you turn it without the hub just going round and round. Well, here's the "bar trick". Use a prybar and a few wheel bolts to lock it in place while you turn. It was easy with this in place.

: Easy way to get center bolt out.; BarTrick.png (1.26 MiB) Viewed 1925 times

Remove all other bolts.
You'll need to remove the 10mm bolt that secures the brake disc and then the two 13mm bolts that hold the disc brake caliper in place. Tie the caliper up so that it's out of the way and there's no strain on the brakelines. Then give the brake disc center hub a few whacks with a baby sledgehammer and it'll pop loose. I hit it right where those yellow "X" marks are and it came right off (left picture).

Then you'll need to get the 4 bolts with 17mm heads that are holding the hub in place. They are accesses from behind

: Bolt removal.; Bolts.png (1.1 MiB) Viewed 1925 times

Here are a few pictures of how I removed the 4 bolts holding the hub/bearing in place. The ratcheting 17mm wrench was key and made quick work of bolts 2 & 3. The others I had to use a socket. The are not hard to get to and if they are tight, a few whacks with a rubber mallet does the trick.

: Bolts 2 & 3; Bremove1.png (783.75 KiB) Viewed 1925 times

Bolts 1 & 4 were accessed using a socket wrench. Here's a picture (right) with the bolt locations very clear since the hub is off. As you can see, the hub shape will ensure that it only fits in one way.

: Bolts 1 & 4; Bremove2.png (945.73 KiB) Viewed 1925 times

Securing new Hub
Not much to say here. Just bolt it back in with a bit of threadlock for good measure.
I did notice that the bolts included with my hub kit had 15mm heads instead of 17mm. The bolts themselves were of the same diameter and they fit fine. However, since you are not supposed to reuse the old bolts, I just installed the new ones that came with the kit.

: Old and New.; OldNew.png (935.68 KiB) Viewed 1925 times

So that's it. At this point, buttoning it back up is pretty straightforward.
I took the car for a drive and it's back to smooth and quiet again. This whole job took me about 1.5 hours as I was going slow and methodically taking pictures. Also, my car being in California, didn't have much gunk or rust at all. Nothing was stuck or otherwise overly difficult to remove. It was an easy job and definitely not worth giving the independent repair shop $650!
Ok, if they used a Volvo hub ($300 retail) then they would have charged me $350 for labor. Still, I only spent $116+$20 (overnight shipping). A bit of elbow grease and it's done.

Alright, I hope this helps you tackle this issue if it comes up for you. It's not hard.

Post by **matthew1** » 14 Mar 2020, 19:17

$650

As you found, hubs are kinda easy. Biggest challenge is if the axle nut won't come off. I had to go to a shop to have one loosened once.

Great writeup, Song.

Scheduled for inclusion into the Volvo Repair Database.

Post by **songzunhuang** » 15 Mar 2020, 13:19

matthew1 wrote: ↑14 Mar 2020, 19:17 $650

As you found, hubs are kinda easy. Biggest challenge is if the axle nut won't come off. I had to go to a shop to have one loosened once.

Great writeup, Song.

Scheduled for inclusion into the Volvo Repair Database.

Thank's I'm home more, now working remotely since the office is asking people to stay back (COVID-19 precaution), so I find myself with a bit more time to update and record stuff that I have been doing. I'm catching up on service items for the cars. Glad to add back to the community. Also, you saw the axle nut trick with the breaker bar? That made it simple.

Post by **matthew1** » 15 Mar 2020, 15:08

I tried. WD-40 for a day, 3- or 4-foot cheat bar, lowering the car onto the bar, cursing, lucky rabbit's foot, walking backwards, throwing salt over my shoulder, speaking in tongues, huffing gas, summoning Omon Ra, and witchy incantations... nothing worked.

Post by **ggleavitt** » 15 Mar 2020, 17:54

No bearing mudflaps, huh? OE comes with them in the box, at least my rears did. See thread for a discussion-https://forums.swedespeed.com/showthrea ... g-Mudflaps

Nice writeup !

Post by **cn90** » 15 Mar 2020, 22:07

The key thing with axle nut is, whether it is the newer P2 axle nut or the old-school P80 axle nut:
- Remove the nut when the tire is still on the ground. It is much simpler that way.

Post by **songzunhuang** » 16 Mar 2020, 00:33

ggleavitt wrote: ↑15 Mar 2020, 17:54 No bearing mudflaps, huh? OE comes with them in the box, at least my rears did. See thread for a discussion-https://forums.swedespeed.com/showthrea ... g-Mudflaps

Nice writeup !

Thanks - I did see that the OEM kits had those and I almost ordered a set of the deflectors just to see what they were all about. After a bit of thought, I figured that my bearings lasted 155K miles without those bearing mudflaps, so I think I'll be ok. Maybe it's because where I live the weather is quite mild.