seized wheel bearing to hub asembly

[shabazmo]

I am trying to replace the front bearing on my A7 but cannot remove the hub/bearing assembly from the strut because its seized on. I have tried hammering it and twisting it. Can anyone tell me how best to do this.

[DEF33]

Add a bit of heat? Might expand enough to free it up

[shabazmo]

Thanks Def33, tried a lot of heat but still it did not budge. I used a slide hammer and managed to pull the hub out and parts of the bearing. I then tried hammering from the back. Still no luck. I have now taken off the strut, which itself was a pig of a job. I will try pressing the bearing off tomorrow but will need to find a plate about 88mm in diameter for the press to push on to.

What is annoying is that the use of aluminium parts on metal parts means that the surfaces stick together. This will be a nightmare and expensive as the vehicle gets older. i may have a few hundred pounds to spend if I have to replace the strutt.

[Crasher]

They are terrible things to get out, a cast iron bearing in an aluminium upright exposed to salt water, now which engineer would imagine that would not be a service problem? All they had to do was slather some anti seize compound around and it would not be the hammer beating issue it turns into, we dread doing them. We have tried LOTS of heat with our proper hot spanner oxy set and multijet heating nozzle, no help, so much ally just absorbs and dissipates the heat. We haven't tried an induction heater as we can't find one big enough.... Taking the upright off is as you say a sketch because the steel top bolt seizes into the upright top location... crap build quality......

[shabazmo]

Nice to hear from you Crasher. Do you think a 10 ton press will work. When I spray Ferrosol between the flanges, the fluid disappears, so that must be a good sign.

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[Rob69]

If and when you get the bearing out it would be worth checking the strut for cracks after all that heat hammering and pressing, just in case it has been damaged.

[shabazmo]

Not sure how you check for cracks other than visual. Anyone know what a new strut costs.

[shabazmo]

Job done eventually. That's taken me 2 days, so hardly a saving on costs. The hydraulic press was the answer. I guess a garage would take about 3 hours. What I have done though is learnt a lot about my A7 and dismantled greased all the parts which should make future replacements so much easier.

Now I really should look at the other side