Wheel bearing hub assembly

For quite awhile my wife's 2000 Dodge Grand Caravan has needed new bearings in the rear. It has made awful noise inside the vehicle itself. For some time we just thought maybe it was a tire out of balance. Recently she went to get something else looked at and the mechanic told her it was the wheel bearings going. That sort of brought a sense of urgency for us to get it fixed.
Well to continue from my last post. I returned the original wheel bearings (for 15" wheels) and went about getting the correct ones. It was sort of a pain because the original Auto zone I purchased them from only had one. So the guy called another store to find them. So I had to go to another store to get the other. Kind of a pain but I got them. They ended up being Dynapack Part No. WH512155 which cost about $75 a piece (including tax).



So anyway after waiting for my wife to come home in the afternoon I got to work. Now keep in mind that I doubt these wheels have been off since we've had the vehicle so I figured it was going to give me some trouble. I was far off the mark. First of course I jacked up the car(loosening lugnuts first). Removed the tire. That was the easy part believe me.


I then proceeded to try and remove the rusty drums. Of course being on for years(probably original from factory) they didn't even budge by hand. So in comes my trusty 2 pound sledge and good size rubber mallet to try and persuade these things off. Boy did these need a lot of persuading. After about 45 minutes of persuading (and swearing) with no luck I went down to local AutoZone to see if they had any drum pullers for rental. All the guy said did you try a hammer? Not much help there so I went back to work. By that time I guess the oil I had soaked it with(Liquid Wrench I think I don't have it in front of me). It finally began to loosen. Between pounding and prying with a screwdriver I was able to get the drum to come off.







Even after now I'm only half way there on the first wheel. This was not encouraging at all. Of course as my luck would go the actual hub assembly was no better. I removed the four bolts(needs an 18mm socket by the way) and then tried to persuade it to come off. This part was just as bad as the drum removal. No maybe it was worse. I ended up hitting it from behind and pushing it out eventually.

As expected you could tell the hub was bad because it wiggled in comparison to the new one. It was definitely the culprit of the noise. I wire brushed the inner socket where the bearing goes and proceeded to install the new assembly. Needless to say it went together easy (compared to removal). After installing everything back in reverse order I then proceeded to do the other side(I'm a glutton for punishment). It was a similar thought the drum was a tad bit easier to get off otherwise it was about the same.

Well all in all it was an interesting experience. I did take it for a test drive afterward and was definitely quieter and I didn't detect any problems. So I was happy with that. Well that was all for today. Thanks for coming by.

Related information: About.com Auto repair, Haynes Repair Manual #30011 (Dodge Caravan,Chrysler Town & Country and Plymouth Voyager 1996-2002)