987687

Thanks!

Once you get the shaft through, bolt the suspension back together. I didn't take detailed pictures of this because it goes back together the same way you got it apart. I advise doing it exactly the reverse of how I said to take it apart. The hardest part will be getting the strut back on, I had to kneel on the knuckle and simultaneously thread in the bolt. Now you have it all back together. At this point, if you were keeping your drum brakes all you'd have to do is put the hub on, put on the cone washer, the flat washer and bolt it all together. Don't forget your brake line! But I'm not keeping the drum brakes. So I bolted on the backing plate for the disc brakes. Now if you're using either drum of disk brakes you'll want to clean up the part that mates up to the bearing and outer seal. Shine it up nice and make sure it's devoid of dirt. Don't contaminate that brand new bearing! Next put the drum hub or disk hub back on and tighten her up! Don't forget the cone washer and the big flat washer! Here's the cone washer, the flat washer looks like, well, a big flat washer. Here's the hub all bolted back on with the cotter pin in. DON'T FORGET THAT!! The way I torqued the castle nut on is more or less the same way I got it off. Stand on the breaker bar until I can't get it to turn anymore, the jump on it until I can put in the cotter pin. And remember, I only weigh 145lbs, so if you're a lot larger you might break something, I don't know... Then you'll want to bolt on the calipers. They'll go on the same way they came off, if you're converting refer to TheSubaruJunkie's swap thread. As a final part of the brake swap I decided to shorten the metal lines. The metal line goes directly into the drum brake, and the disc brake caliper has a length of plastic hose. So the plastic hose on both ends of the metal line has a lot of stress on it. I decided to cut the metal line to a more appropriate length. I did this partly because it makes sense and will prolong the life of the plastic lines, and partly because I couldn't get the brake line off the left caliper. I just turned the head off the nut. In order to shorten the line you need a double flare tool. After all the brake lines are connected up you'll need to bleed the brakes. I'm not going to go into detail because it's easy and there are probably guides on here how to do it. But a very important note whenever removing brake lines is that you never want to run out of brake fluid in the reservoir under the hood! Then you'll be bleeding the master cylinder and yuck yuck yuck. So if you lose a lot of fluid flaring a line, or bleeding just keep it topped up. Pretty easy especially considering what happens if you don't. You are now DONE with your wheel bearing AND brake swap! CONGRATULATIONS!!! BUT, don't drive your car yet. As excited as you may be. First get under the car and check EVERY nut and bolt you touched. Make sure they're all torqued down. Make sure they're all there and you didn't forget to put some important bolt back in. Make sure you're brake lines aren't leaking where you made new flares and connections. Make sure the brake bleeders aren't leaking. Make sure you have the cotter pins in the axle nuts. Make sure you put the axle pins back in the axles if you removed those. Before you put the wheels back on the ground grab a hold of them and make sure they don't wobble. This would very quickly destroy your new bearings. Make sure that if I left something off this list that you check it so your car is safe. NOW. FINALLY. You are ready for your test drive. Take it slow, make sure everything is alright, and be amazed at how insanely quiet your car is!! After your test drive do another double check. Check axle nuts to see if you can get them any tighter. You REALLY don't want them loose. And also VERY important check to make sure you don't have any leaks in any connection in the brake lines you touched. Some final notes: The reason the suspension arm must be removed is because you can't pound the stub shaft out without either removing an axle or the arm. I couldn't get my axles off. After you remove one arm, you do not need to remove the other. Just drop the differential and slide the axle out. If you do this, you take the gamble that you won't be able to get the race back in and the arm will have to be removed for pressing the new race in. Then the arm will have to come off anyway. Now you should be done! And very greasy as well ....

Once you get the shaft through, bolt the suspension back together. I didn't take detailed pictures of this because it goes back together the same way you got it apart. I advise doing it exactly the reverse of how I said to take it apart. The hardest part will be getting the strut back on, I had to kneel on the knuckle and simultaneously thread in the bolt. Now you have it all back together. At this point, if you were keeping your drum brakes all you'd have to do is put the hub on, put on the cone washer, the flat washer and bolt it all together. Don't forget your brake line! But I'm not keeping the drum brakes. So I bolted on the backing plate for the disc brakes. Now if you're using either drum of disk brakes you'll want to clean up the part that mates up to the bearing and outer seal. Shine it up nice and make sure it's devoid of dirt. Don't contaminate that brand new bearing! Next put the drum hub or disk hub back on and tighten her up! Don't forget the cone washer and the big flat washer! Here's the cone washer, the flat washer looks like, well, a big flat washer. Note from years later: The flat washer IS NOT A FLAT WASHER. It has a concave and a convex side. The convex side (the side that bulges out) goes toward the cone, the nut rides on the convex side. Here's the hub all bolted back on with the cotter pin in. DON'T FORGET THAT!! The way I torqued the castle nut on is more or less the same way I got it off. Stand on the breaker bar until I can't get it to turn anymore, the jump on it until I can put in the cotter pin. And remember, I only weigh 145lbs, so if you're a lot larger you might break something, I don't know... Then you'll want to bolt on the calipers. They'll go on the same way they came off, if you're converting refer to TheSubaruJunkie's swap thread. As a final part of the brake swap I decided to shorten the metal lines. The metal line goes directly into the drum brake, and the disc brake caliper has a length of plastic hose. So the plastic hose on both ends of the metal line has a lot of stress on it. I decided to cut the metal line to a more appropriate length. I did this partly because it makes sense and will prolong the life of the plastic lines, and partly because I couldn't get the brake line off the left caliper. I just turned the head off the nut. In order to shorten the line you need a double flare tool. After all the brake lines are connected up you'll need to bleed the brakes. I'm not going to go into detail because it's easy and there are probably guides on here how to do it. But a very important note whenever removing brake lines is that you never want to run out of brake fluid in the reservoir under the hood! Then you'll be bleeding the master cylinder and yuck yuck yuck. So if you lose a lot of fluid flaring a line, or bleeding just keep it topped up. Pretty easy especially considering what happens if you don't. You are now DONE with your wheel bearing AND brake swap! CONGRATULATIONS!!! BUT, don't drive your car yet. As excited as you may be. First get under the car and check EVERY nut and bolt you touched. Make sure they're all torqued down. Make sure they're all there and you didn't forget to put some important bolt back in. Make sure you're brake lines aren't leaking where you made new flares and connections. Make sure the brake bleeders aren't leaking. Make sure you have the cotter pins in the axle nuts. Make sure you put the axle pins back in the axles if you removed those. Before you put the wheels back on the ground grab a hold of them and make sure they don't wobble. This would very quickly destroy your new bearings. Make sure that if I left something off this list that you check it so your car is safe. NOW. FINALLY. You are ready for your test drive. Take it slow, make sure everything is alright, and be amazed at how insanely quiet your car is!! After your test drive do another double check. Check axle nuts to see if you can get them any tighter. You REALLY don't want them loose. And also VERY important check to make sure you don't have any leaks in any connection in the brake lines you touched. Some final notes: The reason the suspension arm must be removed is because you can't pound the stub shaft out without either removing an axle or the arm. I couldn't get my axles off. After you remove one arm, you do not need to remove the other. Just drop the differential and slide the axle out. If you do this, you take the gamble that you won't be able to get the race back in and the arm will have to be removed for pressing the new race in. Then the arm will have to come off anyway. EDIT ********************** EDIT ******************* EDIT It's almost 8 years later and I'm editing this to change my links to imgur from photobucket due to a few requests to repair this guide. I'd like to note that, when I did this, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. It's probably abundantly obvious by reading through so take it for what it is. GD lists a few good points in the next post and even though some of my techniques are poor, the pictures tell a pretty good story on their own. Most of the time knowing what something looks like inside is better than words.

After tapping that out, the ring pounded out with relative ease. Now you can remove the bearing just like you did for the outer end. And you have no bearings left, and need to remove the race Inside: Outside. Note the lip that stops the race from being pressed all the way out the other end: I should note here that some bearings are 2 part, and some are 3 parts. With the inner section being separate. Also some of the races come out as one part, and some come out as 3 parts. I had one of each on my car on each side The 2 part bearing and 1 part race that came out. (like the new on I installed): The multi-part one that came out of the other side: Now you need to get out the old race, I found that my mallet fits perfectly in the race to pound it out. Just bang on it with a hammer and a few minutes of pounding later the race popped out! Now clean everything up really well! You don't want to contaminate your new bearing!! Here's the new bearings, race, seals, and grease that are going in. Put in the new race. One side I put in, I barely had to tap it at all and it just went right in nice and easy. The other side I had to bring to a machine shop to have pressed as I didn't want to damage the new race. It only cost $5, so not a big deal. You HAVE to put the race in from the back side. Press it in until it hits the lip and won't go further. Now that your new race is in, it's time to get the bearings greasy. Put on gloves and work as much grease as possible into the bearings. Grease up the race and pop in the new bearing, and then get it more greasy. I started with the inner side, no particular reason. Next you need to put the lock ring back in, again, make sure everything is spotless. You don't want any grit getting in the new bearing! After the ring is in, make sure pounding didn't loose any grit into the grease, if it did, remove it. (And yes, I realize I have the punch going in the wrong direction for the picture...) Now you'll want to grease up the inner seal (the smaller of the 2) NOTE: the side of the seal that is facing up (it has the groove and the metal ring) is the INSIDE. It goes toward the bearing. Apparently I don't have a pic of putting it into the lock ring, but it just slides in the same way the old one came out. You can use a punch to tap it in. BUT VERY SLOW AND VERY CAREFULLY!! If you force them to hard you'll break them. I did this with an outer seal. New you'll need to install the outer seal, get it greasy like before, and tap it in. This one does NOT like to go in. And DON'T force it. Just take it easy, go slow. Otherwise you'll break it and have to make another trip to napa for a new one Now you have successfully changed the wheel bearing!!! That wasn't so hard was it... oh wait, you have to put the car back together now .... It's now time to put the suspension arm back on the car. First though, you'll need to clean off the stub shaft, because that's going through your brand new $85 bearing. Now it is time to put the shaft through the bearing. And it will require a bit of pulling. The perfect tool for this would be a propeller puller. But alas, I have loaned it to a friend and didn't have it. So... I came up with another creative method. Worked alright, got the job done. Just be really really careful you don't damage that outer seal!

After tapping that out, the ring pounded out with relative ease. Now you can remove the bearing just like you did for the outer end. And you have no bearings left, and need to remove the race Inside: Outside. Note the lip that stops the race from being pressed all the way out the other end: I should note here that some bearings are 2 part, and some are 3 parts. With the inner section being separate. Also some of the races come out as one part, and some come out as 3 parts. I had one of each on my car on each side The 2 part bearing and 1 part race that came out. (like the new on I installed): The multi-part one that came out of the other side: Now you need to get out the old race, I found that my mallet fits perfectly in the race to pound it out. Just bang on it with a hammer and a few minutes of pounding later the race popped out! Now clean everything up really well! You don't want to contaminate your new bearing!! Here's the new bearings, race, seals, and grease that are going in. Put in the new race. One side I put in, I barely had to tap it at all and it just went right in nice and easy. The other side I had to bring to a machine shop to have pressed as I didn't want to damage the new race. It only cost $5, so not a big deal. You HAVE to put the race in from the back side. Press it in until it hits the lip and won't go further. Now that your new race is in, it's time to get the bearings greasy. Put on gloves and work as much grease as possible into the bearings. Grease up the race and pop in the new bearing, and then get it more greasy. I started with the inner side, no particular reason. Next you need to put the lock ring back in, again, make sure everything is spotless. You don't want any grit getting in the new bearing! After the ring is in, make sure pounding didn't loose any grit into the grease, if it did, remove it. (And yes, I realize I have the punch going in the wrong direction for the picture...) Now you'll want to grease up the inner seal (the smaller of the 2) NOTE: the side of the seal that is facing up (it has the groove and the metal ring) is the INSIDE. It goes toward the bearing. Apparently I don't have a pic of putting it into the lock ring, but it just slides in the same way the old one came out. You can use a punch to tap it in. BUT VERY SLOW AND VERY CAREFULLY!! If you force them to hard you'll break them. I did this with an outer seal. New you'll need to install the outer seal, get it greasy like before, and tap it in. This one does NOT like to go in. And DON'T force it. Just take it easy, go slow. Otherwise you'll break it and have to make another trip to napa for a new one Now you have successfully changed the wheel bearing!!! That wasn't so hard was it... oh wait, you have to put the car back together now .... It's now time to put the suspension arm back on the car. First though, you'll need to clean off the stub shaft, because that's going through your brand new $85 bearing. Now it is time to put the shaft through the bearing. And it will require a bit of pulling. The perfect tool for this would be a propeller puller. But alas, I have loaned it to a friend and didn't have it. So... I came up with another creative method. Worked alright, got the job done. Just be really really careful you don't damage that outer seal!

You will need for wheel bearing replacement: - New wheel bearings - BFH - Breaker bar - 36mm axle socket that fits on your breaker bar - I believe I used every size between 10 and 17 - You'll also want at least a 17mm box end wrench - Obviously a socket wrench - A socket extension - Wheel bearing grease - Inner AND outer seals - Jack stands - Lug wrench (I really hope one of these lives in your car anyway...) - 10mm flare wrench for brake lines Additional bits if you're doing the brake upgrade: - The brake parts (TheSubaruJunkie has a really nice swap thread here <http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=49975> So I won't go into to much detail) - Flare tool - Flare nuts for the new brake line flares Start by loosening the axle nut and the lug nuts before you jack up the car. Take the cotter pin out of the axle nut. The nut is 36mm and on there wicked tight. I had to literally jump on the breaker bar to break it loose. block up the car. I don't have jack stands but an old generator stator and some 2x4s work just fine... Take off the wheel, loosen, and take off the axle nut, the big washer, and the cone washer. Take off the hub, it should just pull off, but on the left side it needed a good amount of pounding to come loose. No idea why and I probably destroyed it. I converted to disc brakes anyway though Here's what it looks like with the hub off At this point you can pound the axle through a little bit, you can't pound it all the way out, but loosening it will make it easier to get the suspension arm off. Don't pound directly on the end of the stub shaft or you'll bugger it up. Put a block of wood between the shaft and your hammer Now you'll want to remove the strut. The nut is welded on so just unbolt it from the inside where the arrow is. Now remove the 3 bolts on the side of the suspension arm. You can see I'm using a box end wrench here. These bolts did NOT want to come out on either side. So I had to pound them around. Air tools would be awesome here... The nuts on these are also welded on the back side Now you'll have to remove the last bolt on the suspension arm. The bold head is on the inside (red arrow) and the nut is not welded. So you'll have to put a wrench on it. Now you're here' all the bolts out. Just a little pounding left and the arm is off! Before you take it off, you should disconnect the brake line at the red arrow, but most likely it won't come loose. So just be careful with it. If it doesn't come loose, however, you need to cut the mount with a hacksaw. Hacksawing the mount ... You'll have to disconnect the brake line from the old drum brake. I didn't want it leaking all day long so I plugged it up. A little ghetto, but it did the job With the brake line taken care of, safely out of the way, and everything unbolted the suspension arm falls to the ground. Plop! Next thing I did was take the drum brake off because it makes it easier. You don't have to, but I swapped to disc brakes. So it had to come off anyway. After taking out the 3 bolts, and some pounding the brake is off! Now you're ready to start with the wheel bearing!! The part that I thought was the most fun. Putting new shiny bits in! First we need to get the old one out. Pull out the outer seal. Can be a real hassle to get out, but you're not going to hurt anything, so have at it! Then pull out the old bearing. YUCK! I can see why that was making awful noise. Now for the inner side. Here's what it looks like before taring it apart. Pull out the seal. Next you have to take out the ring. Unless you're really special and have the tool to do this, you need to pound it around. I used a 1/4" punch and a hammer. The left side came out without TO much pounding, but the right side just wouldn't budge. After some closer inspection it seems the last person to change the bearings punched the side in to keep it from backing out. It's a little hard to see because it's all gritty and rusty, so I circled it in red

You will need for wheel bearing replacement: - New wheel bearings - BFH - Breaker bar - 36mm axle socket that fits on your breaker bar - I believe I used every size between 10 and 17 - You'll also want at least a 17mm box end wrench - Obviously a socket wrench - A socket extension - Wheel bearing grease - Inner AND outer seals - Jack stands - Lug wrench (I really hope one of these lives in your car anyway...) - 10mm flare wrench for brake lines Additional bits if you're doing the brake upgrade: - The brake parts (TheSubaruJunkie has a really nice swap thread here <http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=49975> So I won't go into to much detail) - Flare tool - Flare nuts for the new brake line flares Start by loosening the axle nut and the lug nuts before you jack up the car. Take the cotter pin out of the axle nut. The nut is 36mm and on there wicked tight. I had to literally jump on the breaker bar to break it loose. block up the car. I don't have jack stands but an old generator stator and some 2x4s work just fine... Take off the wheel, loosen, and take off the axle nut, the big washer, and the cone washer. Take off the hub, it should just pull off, but on the left side it needed a good amount of pounding to come loose. No idea why and I probably destroyed it. I converted to disc brakes anyway though Here's what it looks like with the hub off At this point you can pound the axle through a little bit, you can't pound it all the way out, but loosening it will make it easier to get the suspension arm off. Don't pound directly on the end of the stub shaft or you'll bugger it up. Put a block of wood between the shaft and your hammer Now you'll want to remove the strut. The nut is welded on so just unbolt it from the inside where the arrow is. Now remove the 3 bolts on the side of the suspension arm. You can see I'm using a box end wrench here. These bolts did NOT want to come out on either side. So I had to pound them around. Air tools would be awesome here... The nuts on these are also welded on the back side Now you'll have to remove the last bolt on the suspension arm. The bold head is on the inside (red arrow) and the nut is not welded. So you'll have to put a wrench on it. Now you're here, all the bolts out. Just a little pounding left and the arm is off! Before you take it off, you should disconnect the brake line at the red arrow, but most likely it won't come loose. So just be careful with it. If it doesn't come loose, however, you need to cut the mount with a hacksaw. Hacksawing the mount ... You'll have to disconnect the brake line from the old drum brake. I didn't want it leaking all day long so I plugged it up. A little ghetto, but it did the job Note from many years later: You can stick a piece of wood between the seat and the brake pedal, holding the brake pedal down closes the opening between the reservoir and the cylinder so brake fluid doesn't leak out of the system. Just disconnect your battery or remove the fuse for the brake lights. With the brake line taken care of, safely out of the way, and everything unbolted the suspension arm falls to the ground. Plop! Next thing I did was take the drum brake off because it makes it easier. You don't have to, but I swapped to disc brakes. So it had to come off anyway. After taking out the 3 bolts, and some pounding the brake is off! Now you're ready to start with the wheel bearing!! The part that I thought was the most fun. Putting new shiny bits in! First we need to get the old one out. Pull out the outer seal. Can be a real hassle to get out, but you're not going to hurt anything, so have at it! Then pull out the old bearing. YUCK! I can see why that was making awful noise. Now for the inner side. Here's what it looks like before taring it apart. Pull out the seal. Next you have to take out the ring. Unless you're really special and have the tool to do this, you need to pound it around. I used a 1/4" punch and a hammer. The left side came out without TO much pounding, but the right side just wouldn't budge. After some closer inspection it seems the last person to change the bearings punched the side in to keep it from backing out. It's a little hard to see because it's all gritty and rusty, so I circled it in red

It's pretty easy, actually. I take it you have the stub shaft out of the bearing? Next thing is to pull the outer oil seal out, comes out with a little prying. The outer bearing comes out then. Next step is to pull the inner oil seal, isn't such a pain to get out as the outer one. Then you need to take out the locking ring. It is threaded. Unless you can find the subaru tool to get it out, you just have to pound it around with a punch. It takes a good deal of hitting it with a bfh, but it comes out eventually. When that's out you will be able to pull out the other side of the bearing. (some times the bearings come out in 2 pieces, sometimes 3) Then you need to pull out the old race, some are one piece, some are 3, but same idea. Pound it from the outside in. Find something that fits in the race and pound it till it comes out! Just don't bugger up the knuckle. The carefully tap in the new race from the insde until it stops at the outer lip. One of mine went in nice and easy, the other I had to get pressed. Then it all goes back together like you got it apart. Just make sure you get it nice and full of grease.

is it FWD or 4WD? front or back bearings? I just finished a rear 4wd bearing job, and will have pics and a guide up soon. So I'm kinda fluent with how to do it all.

So it is DONE! Many thanks to the invaluable help from bratman I took a decent amount of pictures taking the second side apart, all the major steps and most minor steps. So I'm going to write up a wheel bearing guide in the next few days.

Much thanks to everybody, especially bratman. I wouldn't be able to do this without him (I wouldn't have the car either...). Sometimes the process can be hard, but the end result is going to be awesome!

Thanks so much for the advise and tips! I hope to have this apart tomorrow and be on my way!!

The shaft that goes through the bearing and has the axle nut on it. The haynes manual calls it the rear spline... I have the diff completely unbolted, but there's absolutely no way to get the axle to slide out of the bearing without disconnecting an axle? darn... This is what has happened on mine. Very, very stuck. Is there any special way you go about pounding on them to get them out? What's the most efficient way to bang on the thing? Also, I wasn't sure if it was ok to use heat, I didn't want to mess anything up. But I'll give that a try tomorrow when I get back at it. Thanks!

So as far as I can tell, there's no way to get the spline out without taking off an axle. Some please tell me I'm wrong and that on the ea82 you can in fact get the spline out with all the axles on.... Otherwise... HOW THE EFF does one get an axle off?

I know all about the water pump seizing and eating the timing belt thing It will start making a whirring noise, sort of like a really loud wheel bearing. You can hear it over road noise at 70mph, and obviously changes with RPM. And I got around 300 miles with it in this state. So if you have the noise, water pump. If not, the first thing I'd do isn't go and replace the pump, because the timing belt needs to come off, bleck. Start with a new thermostat and go from there. It's pretty easy to replace.

Tell us what the verdict, I'm interested to hear.

Beautiful pics and car! I love it. I lived in Akureyri for a year and loved it. Iceland is such a beautiful country.

That's good.. Because I already have it, I'd be annoyed if it wasn't the same... I have a lot going on right now, so GL is kinda on hold until next week :/

I know it's the FI from the ea82, but I didn't realize it also had the thermostat from the ea82. Is it the same thermostat gasket?

After I get all the sticker stuff done and I have some time, I'm just going to pull the hubs and bring them to a local machine shop (billings and cole) and they'll press the bearings out and in for me. They do pressing for a few local car shops, so they even have the right press thingy for the GL!

Cool, I should have mentioned that I didn't actually take the bleeder out, I just got it to turn. So I assumed that since it turned 2 turns it would come all the way out, so I screwed it back in.

Why cap it? why not just immediately screw the new one back in?

Thanks for all the advise. I'll be sure to use a closed end wrench in the future. I didn't have any small enough, so I just used a socket. I'll go buy one. I got it with the vice grips! Kinda squashed the crap out of the bleeder screw, but whatever, it'll come out. Napa is ordering two for me, so I'll just replace both in the front tomorrow when I get the parts. When I pull the bleeder screw all the way out, what's going to happen? ... I'm not going to have a torrent of brake fluid, am I?

I was wicked tempted to use vice grips, but figured I'd hold off until I got some advise. Thanks. I'll go out and see what happens ... I have a very nice pair of grippy vice grips. Wish me luck!

So part of the reason I failed inspection is because of a mooshy brake pedal. So I went to bleed them, looks pretty easy. I doused the bleeder screws for about half an hour in PB blaster, one of the rear ones (drum) went nice, the other the bleeder snapped off But whatever, I'll just do a disk swap (bratman is selling me the bits). The bit that really annoys me is that the front left one was really rusty and my socket just rounded the head off. The bleeder screw is still in there though, how should I proceed? Obviously I'll need a new bleeder screw, but how should I get the old one out without damaging anything any worse? I think the situation can be salvaged if I do the right thing. thanks.