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New wheel bearing - now hub wobbles

('03-'05) 
6K views 7 replies 5 participants last post by  dave5358 
#1 ·
My '05 Forester has been making the standard bad wheel bearing noise. From inside the vehicle sounded like the rear passenger side. Jacked the car up, tried to wiggle the tire, nothing budged (good sign, right?). I got it up off the ground and put it in gear, used a stethoscope to listen to the rear passenger bearing and it sounded like sand/gravel. Drivers side was quiet.

I bought the whole bearing/seals kit from the dealership and took the knuckle off. Gave it all to a local shop to have them press out/in the bearing. Got it back and now I'm putting in the inner two seals before putting the knuckle back on the car.

While I'm doing this, I notice there's a wobble. With the wheel studs on the ground, knuckle in the air, I can wobble the knuckle while the hub stays still. There is play between the inner race of the bearing and the outer race. There is no play between the hub shaft and the inner race.

Can someone tell me what this means? Wrong part from the dealership? Did the shop mess something up? I'm not sure what to do next except buy a new bearing and do the job myself. Ideas? Or is this normal and will straighten itself out once I put it on the car and tighten the axle nut?

Thanks.
 
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#3 ·
That's what I initially thought too. But then I couldn't figure out how the bearing could go in any other way besides straight? Isn't there a section that the bearing goes into first that will properly align it so there is no way to press it in crooked?

I talked to my neighbor and he said that most bearings (not subaru specific..just bearings in general) have play in them until you get the axle through them and tighten up the axle nut. He had a couple bearings laying around and showed me.

I still feel like something is wrong, but I guess I might as well go ahead and put everything back together and see what happens. Either the axle nut will put the right level of pressure on the bearing to tighten it up, or I'll see that the wheel wobbles and the shop really did mess it up.
 
#4 ·
The only movement that a brand new bearing should be capable of, is the races spinning. The inner race should not tilt out of line with the outer, nor should the inner race move off-center. The recently installed bearing sounds like it is lunched.
 
#6 ·
I'm reading a lot of people say they always replace the hub when replacing a bearing...just to be safe. What symptoms would I be seeing if the hub were bad? I assume I'd being seeing movement between the hub shaft and inner race?

Just trying to narrow down if I will just need a new bearing, new hub and bearing, or new hub bearing and knuckle.
 
#7 ·
Just wanted to follow up with this. The issue has been resolved. The hub was not pressed into the inner race far enough, this allowed for too much play between the inner races allowing the hub to wobble side to side. Now that it is pressed in all the way the play is gone. Reinstalled on the car and its quiet once again.
 
#8 ·
Glad to hear there's a happy ending. The shop who did your bearing pressing simply did not do it correctly. Since you did not drive on it, it probably caused no damage.

When I had this job done, I gave the shop the new bearings, seals, the whole banana. They took it apart and gave it back to me all installed. This particular clutch and joint shop has been in business for 82 years. There's not much about bearings and joints they haven't seen or fixed. My new bearings have worked well for 20k miles.

It is not required to replace hubs. If a bearing is really really gone and you continue to drive on it, you could damage the hub. And, occasionally, a hub is so rusted to the axle that the splines cannot be cleaned up - replacement is the cure. I had one rusty axle spline, but the C&J guy looked it over and gave it a 'thumbs up'.
 
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