One more thing, that stuff in a can to clean brakes called brake kleen, its a brake cleaner but how do you use it and what can and cant you spray it on?

 

I don't see why you couldn't put the old hub back on if you find nothing wrong with them. I would use lock tight on the three bolts that hold the hub to the steering knuckle. My book says those three bolts are 70 ft-lbs.

You can spary the brake cleaner on all of the parts pretty much. Maybe not any of the rubber seals, I have without any problem but I'm not sure if it reduces the life of them. I just spray it all over the caliper, caliper bracket, and rotor. Brake cleaner evaporates pretty quick so I don't think it will hurt anything. Just don't get it on the paint, it will eat the clear coat.

 

Any idea on how to get at the three bolts with a socket set? That other part of the hub assembly is in the way.

The new hub assembly, does anything have to be greased? or is it ready to go?

 

I'm not sure on that. You could probably turn your wheels in whatever direction you need to get better access to the bolts.
The new hub will have grease inside it already, its a sealed bearing so there is no way to grease it.
One more thing I should mention, when your taking the hub off make sure you don't pull the axle with it. That could cause the axle to seperate from the half shaft, then you get pissed off and have to fix something else.

 

Ok, hopefuly the Axle doesn,t seperate. All i will do is pull on the hub while i hammer the axle with a rubber mallet to loosen the hub off. Firstly i have the joy of trying to figure out what bearing is bad. Everytime i drive its like the sound chooses to switch sides on me. I will make sure i take pics while i am replacing these bearings. Thanks for all your help Rusty , you have been a great help!

 

Your welcome, thats what I'm here for.

I have heard of people putting the front of the car on jack stands and putting it in drive, let it idle and go listen to each of the wheels to find the bad one. I would say thats not very safe but to each their own.
Another way would be a GM dealership. The Tec 2 that they use can tell you which wheel bearing bad. The only problem with that is they charge close to $100 just to hook the damn thing up.
I think that if you pull one bearing and everthing seems fine, put it back in and go to the other side. If anything else its a learning experience and your saving yourself money.
Let me know how it goes.

 

Chances are pulling the bearing will ruin it and youll be stuck with an extra job and wasted money since it cant be put back together, the jacking up the front of the car and blocking the back tires sounds like it would work fine, ive never done it because i have the liberty of using a lift when i need to but it would make life easier. What ive been taught and what ive used always to check wheel bearings is get the car running around 30m/h or 50km/h and use a listening device, im pretty sure there is one meant to check car noises, i just call it a stethoscope cuz its 2 ear pieces and a long piece of metal that you put on the back of the hub assembly with the tire spinning and you can tell plain as day which bearing is noisey.

1.Get the front jacked up on stands and block the back tires (if you dont have a lift)

2.Get a buddy

3.get them to press the brake and hold it

4.Clamp off the flex hose (rubber brake line) on the opposite side you wanna check with vise grips(dont clamp too tight, it doesnt have to squish it flat to stop the flow of brake fluid and you dont wanna tear the hose cuz theyre expensive, just enough pressure that your not straining a lot to lock it.)

5.Get them to start the vehicle and give it a bit of gas to see if the vise-gripped tire spins and if it does, repeat step 3 with a bit more pressure on the vise grips. If only one tire spins your good.

6. Put your stethoscope thingy listening device on the back of the hub where the bearing would be. Now do all steps for the other wheel and whatever side is loudest, thats the bad bearing.

Note!!!!!

I know this should be obvious but this is only for FRONT WHEEL DRIVE VEHICLES and TESTING THOSE FRONT WHEELS IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A LIFT!

Even though this is an Alero forum some people may think hey ill do this with my truck. haha no. truck will go vroom and you will go squish sitting under it trying to check a bad front bearing.

 

Hey your way may work better, I don't know. Taking the bearing out wouldn't ruin it though. Its a sealed unit, all your doing is unbolting it. The only thing that I could see messing it up would be the torque that GM used on the axle nut, then the torque that gets reapplied when putting it back on. I maybe wrong, I haven't had the pleasure of doing the wheel bearings on my car yet.

If your gonna clamp off the brake hose I wouldn't use vise grips. I would be afraid of the teeth doing damage to the hose. They make a tool to pinch off rubber fuel line that would work great though.

 

Im not sure i am comfortable with the whole pinching of the brake line. I will just jack the car up on stands and give a little gas and try and listen for the noisey side.

by the way, what is the torque spec for the GM axle nut?

i am going to attempt this on the weekend?

 

Im a registered apprentice learning from a 20+ year red seal journeyperson and ive done many wheel bearings and hes used this way for years and teaches everyone and it works fine, it's reasonable that you might think youll tear the line with the vise grips though, its always in the back of my mind but ive yet to tear one.

I also forgot about the Alero having bearings similar to cavaliers, my bad.